Perseverance

How to spell perseverance

12 letters · 4 syllables

The most common mistake is perserverance. The letters people get wrong are highlighted.

perserverance perseverance

What people typed instead

• perserverance3 people

How to pronounce perseverance

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does perseverance mean?

1. nounSteady persistence in a course of action or purpose despite difficulty or delay.

Perseverance in a sentence

• Her perseverance during the long job search finally paid off.

• Completing the marathon took months of training and sheer perseverance.

Where does perseverance come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word travels back to the Latin verb perseverare, meaning 'to persist' or 'to continue steadfastly', which was built from per- (thoroughly) and severus (strict, serious, stern). The underlying idea was of holding firmly and earnestly to a course without slackening. English took the word in during the 1300s by way of Old French perseverance, where it already carried the sense of steady persistence in a difficult task. The same severus root that gives us this word also sits inside the everyday adjective 'severe', a useful reminder that the middle of the word is spelled s-e-v-e-r, not s-e-v-i-r. The most common spelling trap lies in the unstressed vowels: writers reach for the wrong letter in the -ver-ance ending, but anchoring it to 'severe' plus the noun ending -ance keeps it steady.

How the word is built

• per- (thoroughly)
• sever- (from Latin severus: strict, serious)
• -ance (noun-forming suffix)