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PERPETUAL
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Uninterrupted in time and indefinitely long continuing
Example:
unremitting demands of hunger
Synonyms:
ceaseless; constant; incessant; never-ending; perpetual; unceasing; unremitting
Classified under:
Similar:
continuous; uninterrupted (continuing in time or space without interruption)
Derivation:
perpetuity (the property of being perpetual (seemingly ceaseless))
Sense 2
Meaning:
Continuing forever or indefinitely
Example:
the unending bliss of heaven
Synonyms:
aeonian; ageless; eonian; eternal; everlasting; perpetual; unceasing; unending
Classified under:
Similar:
lasting; permanent (continuing or enduring without marked change in status or condition or place)
Derivation:
perpetuity (the property of being perpetual (seemingly ceaseless))
Context examples:
In this perpetual choreography, Naiad swirls around the ice giant every seven hours, while Thalassa, on the outside track, takes seven and a half hours.
(NASA Finds Neptune Moons Locked in 'Dance of Avoidance', NASA)
I should then see the discovery of the longitude, the perpetual motion, the universal medicine, and many other great inventions, brought to the utmost perfection.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
As a result, ultrahot Jupiters' daysides broil in a perpetual high noon.
(Water Is Destroyed, Then Reborn in Ultrahot Jupiters, NASA/JPL)
I preferred utter loneliness to the constant attendance of servants; but Jane's soft ministry will be a perpetual joy.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
Continually changing its intensity and abruptly variant in pitch, it impinged on his nerves and senses, made him nervous and restless and worried him with a perpetual imminence of happening.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
Based on a 2016 study using data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, scientists speculated that lava would flow freely in lakes on the starlit side and become hardened on the face of perpetual darkness.
(Lava or Not, Exoplanet 55 Cancri e Likely to have Atmosphere, NASA)
I used to fancy that life was a positive and perpetual entity, and that by consuming a multitude of live things, no matter how low in the scale of creation, one might indefinitely prolong life.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
I lived in perpetual fright at that time, and had all manner of imaginary complaints from not knowing what to do with myself, or when I should hear from him next; but as long as we could be together, nothing ever ailed me, and I never met with the smallest inconvenience.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
At a distance, unassailed by his looks or his kindness, and safe from the perpetual irritation of knowing his heart, and striving to avoid his confidence, she should be able to reason herself into a properer state; she should be able to think of him as in London, and arranging everything there, without wretchedness.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
He so frequently talked of the increasing expenses of housekeeping, and of the perpetual demands upon his purse, which a man of any consequence in the world was beyond calculation exposed to, that he seemed rather to stand in need of more money himself than to have any design of giving money away.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
