Other forms: importuning, importuned
To importune is to pester somebody with persistent requests. Importune him for money, importuning passers-by, importune the minister.
The persistence is the offence — a single request is not importuning. It has a specific legal use in Britain about soliciting in a public place. The Latin importunus first meant hard to get into, of a harbour, and so unfavourable.
1verbimportuneTo pester somebody with persistent requests.
“Street sellers importuned the tourists, following them down the road.”
importune is a pestering.
Also accepted in games: badger
Latin importunus means troublesome, originally of a harbour hard to enter — in-, not, plus portus, a harbour. Opportune is its positive twin.
Latin
importūnus — unfit, troublesome
Medieval Latin
importūnor — to make oneself troublesome
Middle French
importuner
English, today
importune
From Middle French importuner and its etymon Medieval Latin importūnor (“to make oneself troublesome”), from Latin importūnus (“unfit, troublesome”), originally "having no harbor".
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire