word of the day: importune

The word of the day is importune:

Etymology:  < French importune-r (1512 in Godefroy Compl.) = Italian importunāre (Florio), Spanish importunar (Percivall), medieval Latin importūnārī , -āre , < importūnus : see importune adj. 

1. trans. To burden; to be troublesome or wearisome to; to trouble, worry, pester, annoy. 

2. To press, urge, impel. Also absol. Obs. 

3. To solicit pressingly and persistently; to ply or beset with requests or petitions. 

4. To ask for (a thing) urgently and persistently; to crave or beg for.

5.a. intr. To make urgent solicitation; to be importunate. 

b. To solicit for purposes of prostitution.

6. To import, portend. (A Spenserian misuse.

 (OED)

"I studied hard and absorbed my grammars and didn't confide any of this to Mary Renault.  She had brought me to the Greeks, and had shown me what I was, and it was somehow shaming to let on that I was having a hard time finding anyone like the characters in her novels.  Somewhere in the 'The Persian Boy', when the young Bagoas is being schooled at Susa in the arts of the courtesan, the kindly master who is preparing him for service to the King reminds of a crucial rule of life at court: 'Never be importunate, never, never.'  I was no longer sixteen, and I was determined never to importune her."

 - Daniel Mendelsohn, "The American boy: a famous author, a young reader, and a life-changing correspondence", 7 January 2013 The New Yorker