What's the difference between importune and pester?

Importune


Definition:

  • (a.) To request or solicit, with urgency; to press with frequent, unreasonable, or troublesome application or pertinacity; hence, to tease; to irritate; to worry.
  • (a.) To import; to signify.
  • (v. i.) To require; to demand.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Carr claimed that Kammerer's sexual importuning had become threatening, and in Riverside Park on August 13 1944, he defended himself with his boy scout knife, fatally stabbing Kammerer twice in the chest.
  • (2) The proceedings of animal body waste salvage plants are-as you know-connected with intense smell importunities of the immediate environment.
  • (3) He played in Harold Pinter's A Slight Ache at the Arts theatre and went on tour as Gerald Popkiss in Ben Travers's Rookery Nook, before giving an irresistible Roland Maule, the importunate playwright from Uckfield, in Coward's Present Laughter, at the Vaudeville in 1965.
  • (4) In his recent book, Marriage of Inconvenience , Robert Brownell claims that Effie was something of an adventurer, encouraged by her importunate family to marry Ruskin to forestall her father’s bankruptcy.
  • (5) Had I not been so concerned by this importune turn of events, I might have wondered why two of my oldest friends hadn't told me they were together or invited me to their wedding, and so I resolved to work humbly for Herbert for the next 12 years.
  • (6) This paper discusses three cases of importunate fracture, with skin breakdown and exposed fracture fragments, and their treatment with tobramycin beads (and in two cases, external fixateurs).
  • (7) If we take the view that German aggression above all else started the first world war, we may conclude the US should take a hard line against contemporary Chinese importuning.
  • (8) When she was four, her father had to relocate to Pennsylvania after importuning young male members of his staff.
  • (9) Neither are the tense years of the cold war, when Finland pursued a delicate balancing act between the importunate demands of its giant neighbour and its natural attachment to the west.

Pester


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To trouble; to disturb; to annoy; to harass with petty vexations.
  • (v. t.) To crowd together in an annoying way; to overcrowd; to infest.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The creation of Albion’s second goal was more artful, even if it started with Özil being pestered into surrendering possession near halfway.
  • (2) It was Tim, an archivist from Warners whom I had been pestering for years about trying to track down some long-lost film footage.
  • (3) They should not pressure children or pester parents to buy products, and promotional offers should be used with a "due sense of responsibility".
  • (4) The allegations are sure to concern many parents whose children are pestering them to buy the extensive range of Cars 2 toys launched to coincide with the movie, which hit UK cinema screens in July.
  • (5) Professional irritant Kenny Miller wins a corner down the right, with some incessant pestering.
  • (6) For a year I have been pestered with: "X has got Facebook.
  • (7) He kept pestering her, phoning and phoning and phoning her."
  • (8) But while the Christians are still pestering God, the end-of-daysers awaiting Armageddon, and the Aryan brothers proving the least convincing imaginable argument for the superiority of their race, things have changed quite drastically in porn, which has been even more vulnerable than cinema, TV or music to the predations of the internet.
  • (9) Kala-azar (KA), an enigmatic disease has resurged in India since 1970's after about a lull of 20 years, displaying its pestering nature.
  • (10) The band became pally with him and pestered for a support slot when his Black Pus project (another great name) came to town.
  • (11) After a bit of good-natured pestering, she agrees to sell all of us one drink so we can discuss the heady topic of race in America while slightly intoxicated.
  • (12) Artists don't stand next to their artwork in galleries pestering the public to part with their pound coins.
  • (13) For now he is determined to stick with his work in the building industry, despite his workmates pestering him for the odd Victoria sponge or carrot cake.
  • (14) Nine hours working as an exterminator takes a physical toll on the 45-year-old , who didn’t go to college, makes $33,000 a year, and relies on a steady swarm of pests to pester people in his 90% rural county.
  • (15) The new boss, Paul Pester, whose £1.6m outstanding bonuses from Lloyds are to be transferred to TSB, is also aiming for growth in current accounts, where it has only 4.2% market share despite having some 6% of high street branches.
  • (16) There are some innovative ideas about, he says, on ways of teaching children in school to wash their hands – in the hope that they will then go home and pester their parents to do the same.
  • (17) Joleon Lescott, who endured a torrid debut for Villa, and Micah Richards were pestered into errors in the opening minutes and the latter was especially relieved that Danny Drinkwater’s shot from 25 yards flew over the bar.
  • (18) Paul Pester, chief executive of TSB, said the branches that were closing were within 500 metres of another TSB branch and were part of the estate it inherited when it was carved out of Lloyds Banking Group last year.
  • (19) Pester said the bank had achieved its target of winning more than 6% of all new current accounts and those being switched between banks.
  • (20) Pester added that, of the 631 branches TSB started with, there were 15 locations where two or three branches were “within spitting distance of each other”.