Dogged means stubbornly determined and persistent, refusing to give up no matter how difficult things become. When you pursue something with dogged determination, you keep working at it even when progress feels slow or obstacles appear.

That same quality of hanging on appears in people who show dogged persistence. A scientist might spend years on dogged research into a disease, trying experiment after experiment despite repeated failures. A basketball player might practice free throws with dogged focus every single day, determined to improve.

Dogged describes the kind of determination that outlasts enthusiasm. Anyone can work hard when they're excited about something new, but dogged effort continues when the work gets boring, frustrating, or seemingly impossible. When inventors like Thomas Edison conducted thousands of experiments before finding the right design for the light bulb, that was dogged persistence.

The word doggedly works as an adverb: a student might doggedly work through a challenging book, page by page, until they finally understand it. While stubbornness can sometimes mean being unreasonably rigid, dogged usually suggests admirable determination rather than foolishness.