the quality or state of being tenacious; as, tenacity, or retentiveness, of memory; tenacity, or persistency, of purpose.-that quality of bodies which keeps them from parting without considerable force; cohesiveness; the effect of attraction; -- as distinguished from brittleness, fragility, mobility, etc.-that quality of bodies which makes them adhere to other bodies; adhesiveness; viscosity.-the greatest longitudinal stress a substance can bear without tearing asunder, -- usually expressed with reference to a unit area of the cross section of the substance, as the number of pounds per square inch, or kilograms per square centimeter, necessary to produce rupture.