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
Most important, Mr. Green is his old self: arriving anywhere he wants around the beat, gliding or leaping, importunate and reassuring.
From New York Times • Sep. 14, 2018
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
When an importunate caller suggested that there was a need for PayPal for ordinary Internet transactions, the company single-mindedly spurned him.
From BBC • Jun. 5, 2013
Surprising how much like a small, begging child she makes me feel, simply by her scowl, her stolidity; how importunate and whiny.
From "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood
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.
