from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
noun An importunate request; an insistent or pressing demand.
noun The quality of being importunate.
from The Century Dictionary.
noun Unseasonableness; inopportunity.
noun The act or state of being importunate; pertinacity in solicitation or demand; persistent urgency or insistence.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
noun The quality of being importunate; pressing or pertinacious solicitation; urgent request; incessant or frequent application; troublesome pertinacity.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
noun obsoleteUnseasonableness; an unsuitable or inappropriate time.
noun A constant and insistentdemanding.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
noun insistent solicitation and entreaty
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
From French importunité, from Latin importunitas.
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Examples
The word importunity denotes perseverance in an object, without any regard to time, place, or circumstances -- an improper perseverance.
His messenger was not prepossessing in appearance, nor indeed did he commend himself to one's too alert olfactory sensibilities; but he was very insistent, and, after all, importunity is still what prevails most with us.
Let our mere prayers for peace be made acceptable by our actions, by our willingness to shed the pride and importunity that keeps us trying to have our way with drone strikes and night raids.
“I assured them of my entire disposition to supply Money to them as fast as possible,” Morris recorded in his diary, “and if at any time it is detained longer than it ought I begged they would exert themselves and support me instead of plaguing and Distressing me with importunity.”
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