inveteracy

Related to inveteracy: cadaverously

in·vet·er·ate

(ĭn-vĕt′ər-ĭt)

adj.

1. Firmly and long established; deep-rooted: inveterate preferences.

2. Persisting in an ingrained habit; habitual: an inveterate liar. See Synonyms at chronic.

[Middle English, from Latin inveterātus, past participle of inveterārī, to grow old, endure : in-, causative pref.; see in-² + vetus, veter-, old; see wet- in Indo-European roots.]

in·vet′er·a·cy (-ər-ə-sē), in·vet′er·ate·ness n.

in·vet′er·ate·ly adv.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

References in classic literature ?

This, however, he would by no means allow; and as he called her persisting in the right, obstinacy, he began to hate her with no small inveteracy.

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But as the mind does not exist unless leagued with the soul, therefore it must have been that, in Ahab's case, yielding up all his thoughts and fancies to his one supreme purpose; that purpose, by its own sheer inveteracy of will, forced itself against gods and devils into a kind of self-assumed, independent being of its own.

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de Bragelonne, and with such inveteracy was it fought that a hundred and sixty Arabs were left upon the field, by the side of at least fifty of our troops.

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She and her father would unquestionably be guilty of this crime, and this woman (the inveteracy of whose pursuit cannot be described) would wait to add that strength to her case, and make herself doubly sure.