Meaning & use
staying power
Last updated
Meanings
noununcountable
The ability to keep going for a long time, whether in a task, a race or a career, without giving up or losing energy.
Grammar: Uncountable: she has staying power, not a staying power.
Patterns
- have staying power
- show staying power
The young runner has real staying power in the final laps.
You need staying power to write a whole novel.
The team showed great staying power after losing their star player.
noununcountable
The quality of staying popular, useful or successful over a long period.
Grammar: Uncountable and often used about trends, products or ideas: the style has staying power.
Patterns
- something has staying power
- doubt something's staying power
Few fashion trends have the staying power of the white T-shirt.
Critics doubted whether the show had staying power.
The app has staying power because people use it every day.
Common combinations
- have staying power
- Good ideas have staying power.
- show staying power
- The band showed staying power by touring for forty years.
- lack staying power
- The new diet craze lacked staying power.
- real staying power
- This brand has real staying power.
- prove its staying power
- The small party proved its staying power in three elections.
Synonyms and how they differ
- stamina
- Stamina is mainly physical or mental energy for long effort, while staying power also covers lasting popularity.
- endurance
- Endurance stresses the ability to bear hardship, whereas staying power stresses lasting for a long time.
- perseverance
- Perseverance describes determined effort despite difficulty, while staying power can describe a thing that lasts without effort.
- longevity
- Longevity is a neutral, more formal word for long life or duration, with no sense of effort or struggle.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: staying power or stamina?
staying power vs stamina
Stamina is physical or mental energy, whereas staying power can also describe the long life of a product or idea.
Practice
Which sentence uses staying power in the sense of lasting popularity?
Choose one answer.
Only the third sentence is about something staying popular over time. The first is about energy during a race, and the others misuse the phrase.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “staying power”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.