eternal

• æternal (chiefly archaic)
• æternall, eternall (obsolete)

From Middle English eternal, from Old French eternal, from Late Latin aeternālis, from Latin aeternus (“eternal”), from aevum (“age”). Displaced native Old English ēċe.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɪˈtɜː.nəl/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ɪˈtɝ.nəl/, /iˈtɝ.nəl/

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• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)nəl
• Hyphenation: eter‧nal

eternal (comparative more eternal, superlative most eternal)

1. Lasting forever; unending.

   Synonyms: agelong, endless, everlasting, permanent, sempiternal, unending; see also Thesaurus:eternal

   Antonyms: ephemeral, momentary, transient; see also Thesaurus:ephemeral

   • 1690, John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding:

     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.

   • 1700 [c. 1387–1400], John, transl. Dryden, “Palamon and Arcite”, in Fables, Ancient and Modern, translation of The Knight's Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer:

     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.

   • 2008, BioWare, Mass Effect (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Virmire:

     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.

   • 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^[1]:

     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.

2. (philosophy) Existing outside time; as opposed to sempiternal, existing within time but everlastingly.

   Synonyms: timeless, atemporal; see also Thesaurus:timeless

3. (hyperbolic) Constant; perpetual; ceaseless; ever-present.
   • 1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC:

     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.

4. (dated) Exceedingly great or bad; used as an intensifier.

   Synonym: awful

   some eternal villain

May be used postpositively, as in peace eternal, possibly as a result of Latin influence.^[1]

eternal (plural eternals)

1. One who lives forever; an immortal.
   • 2012, D. E. Phoenix, Revelations of the Fallen: The Blasphemy of Astrial Belthromoto:

     Yes, I want that raw power that is only offered to the eternals or creators

• enteral, teneral

Borrowed from Latin aeternālis. First attested in the 14th century.^[1]

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic) [ə.tərˈnal]
• IPA^(key): (Valencia) [e.teɾˈnal]

eternal m or f (masculine and feminine plural eternals)

1. eternal

   Synonym: etern

• “eternal”, in Diccionari de la llengua catalana [Dictionary of the Catalan Language] (in Catalan), second edition, Institute of Catalan Studies [Catalan: Institut d'Estudis Catalans], April 2007
• “eternal” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “eternal” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

From Latin aeternālis.

eternal m or f (plural eternais)

1. (formal) eternal

   Synonym: eterno

• “eternal”, in Dicionario da Real Academia Galega (in Galician), A Coruña: Royal Galician Academy, 2012–2025

• eterneel, eternall

Borrowed from Old French eternal, eternel, from Latin aeternālis; equivalent to eterne +‎ -al.

• IPA^(key): /ɛːtɛrˈnaːl/, /ɛːˈtɛrnal/, /ɛːtɛrˈnɛːl/

eternal

1. Eternal, permanent; having existed (and existing) forever.
2. Endless, unending; lasting forever.
3. (rare) Long-lasting; non-ephemeral.

• eterne

• English: eternal, tarnal
• Scots: eternal

• “ēternā̆l, -ē̆l, adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 19 January 2019.

From Latin aeternālis.

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eternal m (feminine singular eternala, masculine plural eternals, feminine plural eternalas)

1. eternal

   Synonym: etèrn

Borrowed from Latin aeternālis.

• Hyphenation: e‧ter‧nal

eternal m or f (plural eternais, not comparable)

1. eternal

   Synonym: eterno

• “eternal”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisbon: Priberam, 2008–2025

From Latin aeternālis.

• IPA^(key): /eteɾˈnal/ [e.t̪eɾˈnal]
• Rhymes: -al
• Syllabification: e‧ter‧nal

eternal m or f (masculine and feminine plural eternales)

1. eternal

   Synonym: eterno

• “eternal”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 10 December 2024