tenacious
1
6.1
- adjective
- /təˈneɪʃəs/
:
retentivo
- His tenacious grasp of historical facts made him a valuable quiz competitor.
Examples
-
The student's tenacious memory allowed her to recall every detail from the lecture.
-
That's what I remember from the first time I met you, was voracious and tenacious mentally.
-
What unexpressed philosophical and psychological questions give the memory its tenacious grip?
Academic text (1995) -
Increasingly, the mind is figured as a palimpsest, full of faint-but-tenacious experiential data.
Academic text (2017) -
Words that are spoken through his body—a labor of death, a labor of birth—are the boundary of tenacious life, like a fetal membrane where he comes to be and is still preserved.
Academic text (2000) -
With a tenacious ability to remember even the smallest details, she excelled in her studies.
Synonyms
7
6.5
Able to remember things easily and for a long time
Remembers many details clearly
Antonyms
How Retentive
Surface Forms
Morphology
tenacious = tenacity (semi-transparent) = tenac + ous
The adjective is formed from the noun 'tenacity' via the adjectival suffix, but the 'memory' sense is a metaphorical extension of 'holding on' rather than a literal sticking meaning for many learners.
Etymology
Tenacious comes from the Latin root tenere meaning 'to hold', the same idea you see in retain which means 'to keep'. So a tenacious memory simply 'holds on' to facts and does not let them go.