importunate
Americanadjective
-
urgent or persistent in solicitation, sometimes annoyingly so.
-
pertinacious, as solicitations or demands.
-
troublesome; annoying.
importunate demands from the children for attention.
adjective
-
persistent or demanding; insistent
-
rare troublesome; annoying
Other Word Forms
- importunately adverb
- importunateness noun
- unimportunate adjective
- unimportunately adverb
- unimportunateness noun
Etymology
Origin of importunate
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The number, a duet for Victoria and Jonquil, doesn’t make importunate emotional demands and is all the more poignant for its restraint.
From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 9, 2025
Fiennes brings a wonderful maturity and complexity to the role: a jaggedness, a simmering amour propre, a neurotic obsessiveness, an importunate yearning.
From The Guardian • Jan. 28, 2021
In his review in The New York Times, Jon Pareles wrote that the concert was dominated by “hardheaded women and eagerly importunate men in the eternal strivings of young love.”
From New York Times • Dec. 14, 2017
And maybe this is just me, but I preferred the Kermit/Miss Piggy relationship in its latency phase, when the importunate Piggy only occasionally bothered the reluctant frog with baby talk and kissy noises.
From Slate • Mar. 19, 2014
At that point, I felt an importunate tap, almost a punch, on my upper arm, from Charles’ direction.
From "Nine Stories" by J. D. Salinger
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
