Pronounced: (as it looks), noun
Notes: Another word of which I knew one of the definitions
Yesterday’s word
The word perseverate means
- to repeat or recur persistently
- to go back over previously covered ground
First usage
Our word came into English in the 1910s
Background / Comments
Our word looks like a form of persevere (and they do trace to the same source), but these days the meanings are different. Our verb was created from the noun perseveration, which has been around since the 1500s, but started to be used in the early 1900s to refer to repetitious behavior.
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day 