eternal
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ɪˈtɜː.nəl/
ipa: /ɪˈtɝ.nəl/
ipa: /iˈtɝ.nəl/
rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)nəl
Forms: form: more eternal
form: most eternal
form: æternal
form: æternall
form: eternall
Etymology: From Middle English eternal, from Old French eternal, from Late Latin aeternālis, from Latin aeternus (“eternal”), from aevum (“age”). Displaced native Old English ēċe.
Senses: examples: text: But here again it is another question, quite different from our having an idea of eternity, to know whether there were any real being, whose duration has been eternal.
ref: 1690, John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding:
text: Thy smoking altar shall be fat with food / Of incense and the grateful steam of blood; / Burnt-offerings morn and evening shall be thine, / And fires eternal in thy temple shine.
ref: 1700 [c. 1387–1400], John, transl. Dryden, “Palamon and Arcite”, in Fables, Ancient and Modern, translation of The Knight's Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer:
text: Organic life is nothing but a genetic mutation, an accident. Your lives are measured in years and decades. You wither and die.
We are eternal. The pinnacle of evolution and existence. Before us, you are nothing. Your extinction is inevitable. We are the end of everything.
ref: 2008, BioWare, Mass Effect (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Virmire:
text: In a bid to understand the eternal mystery that is woman, Bart goes to the least qualified possible source for advice and counsel: his father, who remarkably seems to have made it to his mid-30s without quite figuring out much of anything.
ref: 2012 May 27, Nathan Rabin, “TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “New Kid On The Block” (season 4, episode 8; originally aired 11/12/1992)”, in The Onion AV Club:
synonyms: agelong
endless
everlasting
permanent
sempiternal
unending
antonyms: word: ephemeral
word: momentary
word: transient
word: eternal
word: lasting
word: perennial
word: persistent
glosses: Lasting forever; unending.
topics: human-sciences
philosophy
sciences
synonyms: word: timeless
word: atemporal
word: achronic
word: atemporal
word: eternal
word: extratemporal
word: timeless
glosses: Existing outside time; as opposed to sempiternal, existing within time but everlastingly.
examples: text: Beneath him you might have seen the three of us - myself, sunburnt, young, and vigorous after our open-air tramp; Summerlee, solemn but still critical, behind his eternal pipe; Lord John, as keen as a razor-edge, with his supple, alert figure leaning upon his rifle, and his eager eyes fixed eagerly upon the speaker.
ref: 1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC:
glosses: Constant; perpetual; ceaseless; ever-present.
examples: text: some eternal villain
synonyms: awful
glosses: Exceedingly great or bad; used as an intensifier.
Synonyms: word: ageful
word: agelong
word: amaranthine
word: endless
word: enduring
word: eternal
word: eterne
word: everduring
word: evergreen
word: everlasting
word: eviternal
word: forever
word: imperishable
word: indesinent
word: lasting
word: neverending
word: perennial
word: permanent
word: perpetual
word: perpetuate
word: persistent
word: sempiternal
word: timeless
word: unending
word: undeadly
word: undying
Hyponyms: word: coeternal
word: deathless
word: everflowing
word: unfading
word: ageless
word: immortal
word: never-dying
Derived terms: coeternal
crater of eternal darkness
eternal black hole
eternalism
eternalist
eternality
eternalize
eternal life
eternally
eternalness
eternal now
eternal recurrence
eternal rest
eternal return
Eternal September
eternal sin
eternal sleep
eternal triangle
hope springs eternal
hope springs eternal in the human breast
life eternal
noneternal
on eternal patrol
peak of eternal light
supereternal
uneternal
Related terms: word: boundless
word: ceaseless
word: continual
word: incessant
word: infinite
word: interminable
word: limitless
word: unceasing
word: unlimited
word: eternalize
word: eternity
word: continuous