Other forms: pestering, pestered, pesters
To pester is to keep bothering somebody with requests. Pester him for money, stop pestering, pestered constantly.
The repetition is the point: pestering is not one request but many, which is why it is what children do and what pester power names — the marketing term for children's influence on family spending, which is studied and regulated in advertising codes. Note that pester came from a French word meaning to hobble a horse, and was pulled towards pest by sound.
1verbpesterTo keep bothering somebody with requests.
“The children pestered their parents for ice cream all afternoon.”
pester is a repeated bothering.
Old French empestrer meant to hobble or encumber, from a word for a tether. English shortened it and the sense was pulled towards pest, which is unrelated.
Old French
empestrer — encumber
English, today
pester
In the senses of “overcrowd (a place)” and “impede (a person)”: from Middle French - and Old French empestrer (“encumber”), influenced by English pest. The modern sense is an extension of the sense “infest”. Comparable to English - construction pest + -er used to form frequentative verbs.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA