Let me ask a question about the headline of this article.

As the world's population grows, hunger persists on a massive scale.

Does "persist" in the headline mean "to continue to increase" or "continue to be" or something else?

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    I see you already have some close votes. In the future, these might be avoided if you (a) be more careful with the title of your question, so that it accurately reflects what you are looking for (e.g., "Meaning of persist in this context"), and (b) include your research (in this case, where you got the notion that persist can mean "to continue to increase" or "continue to be", perhaps with a dictionary link. More here. As it stands right now, one might be led to believe you want to know the meaning of persist but don't want to look it up. – J.R. Aug 27 '14 at 14:51

Let's first take a look at the definition of the word 'Persist':

  2. to continue insistently, as in repeating a question
  3. to continue to exist or prevail; endure; remain

So you can read the sentence like this:

"As the world's population grows, hunger remains on a massive scale (hunger is still a widespread problem)."

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