importunity

From Middle French importunité, from Latin importūnitās (“incivility”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ɪmpɔːˈtjuːnɪti/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˌɪmpɔɹˈtuːnɪti/

importunity (plural importunities)

1. A constant and insistent demanding.
   • c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke: […] (Second Quarto), London: […] I[ames] R[oberts] for N[icholas] L[ing] […], published 1604, OCLC 760858814, [Act I, scene iii]:

     Then way what loſſe your honor may ſuſtaine / If with too credent eare you liſt his ſongs / Or looſe your hart, or your chaſt treaſure open / To his vnmaſtred importunity.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981, Luke 11:8:

     I say vnto you, Though he will not rise, and giue him, because he is his friend: yet because of his importunitie, hee will rise and giue him as many as he needeth.

   • 1766, [Oliver Goldsmith], The Vicar of Wakefield: […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), Salisbury, Wiltshire: […] B. Collins, for F[rancis] Newbery, […], OCLC 938500648; reprinted London: Elliot Stock, 1885, OCLC 21416084:

     Still, however, being surrounded with importunity, and no longer able to satisfy every request that was made him, instead of money he gave promises.

   • 1847 December, Ellis Bell [pseudonym; Emily Brontë], chapter XXVII, in Wuthering Heights, volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Thomas Cautley Newby, […], OCLC 156123328:

     […] Linton clung to his cousin, and implored her to accompany him, with a frantic importunity that admitted no denial.

   • 1909, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, chapter 13, in Ann Veronica, London: T. Fisher Unwin, page 289:

     But when she turned her thoughts to Morningside Park she perceived the tangled skein of life was now to be further complicated by his romantic importunity.

2. (obsolete) An inappropriate or unsuitable time; unseasonableness.