Library / English Dictionary

FOREVER

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (adverb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Without interruption

Example:

the world is constantly changing

Synonyms:

always; constantly; forever; incessantly; perpetually

Classified under:

Adverbs

Sense 2

Meaning:

For a limitless time

Example:

brightly beams our Father's mercy from his lighthouse evermore

Synonyms:

eternally; everlastingly; evermore; forever

Classified under:

Adverbs

Sense 3

Meaning:

For a very long or seemingly endless time

Example:

we had to wait forever and a day

Synonyms:

forever; forever and a day

Classified under:

Adverbs

Domain usage:

colloquialism (a colloquial expression; characteristic of spoken or written communication that seeks to imitate informal speech)

Credits

 Context examples: 

My good opinion once lost, is lost forever.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

What happened thereupon resided forever after in her memory as a dream.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

His shoulders are rounded from much study, and his face protrudes forward, and is forever slowly oscillating from side to side in a curiously reptilian fashion.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Now, that bird, he would say, is, maybe, two hundred years old, Hawkins—they live forever mostly; and if anybody's seen more wickedness, it must be the devil himself.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

What is it worth? What have I done? It is my ruin forever!

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

If, as Lord John said, the glade of the iguanodons will remain with us as a dream, then surely the swamp of the pterodactyls will forever be our nightmare.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“If you leave me now,” whispered the woman, “then shame forever upon your manhood.”

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I have met him forever at the Bedford; and I knew his face again today the moment he came into the billiard-room.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

To cast it in with Hyde, was to die to a thousand interests and aspirations, and to become, at a blow and forever, despised and friendless.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

"Right now, policymakers generally assume that polystyrene lasts forever in the environment," says Collin Ward, a marine chemist at WHOI and lead author of the study.

(Sunlight degrades polystyrene faster than expected, National Science Foundation)