eternal

comparative more eternal · superlative most eternal · alternative obsolete æternal · alternative obsolete æternall · alternative obsolete eternall

1. Lasting forever; unending.

   One could say time is eternal.

   4 more examples

   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.

   1690, John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

   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.

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

   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.

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

   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.

   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, archived from the original on 14 Aug 2012

   Synonyms: agelong, endless, everlasting, permanent, sempiternal, unending · Antonyms: ephemeral, momentary, transient, earthly, ephemeral, brief, deciduous, evanescent

2. human sciencesExisting outside time; as opposed to sempiternal, existing within time but everlastingly.

   Synonyms: timeless, atemporal, achronic, atemporal, extratemporal, timeless

3. excessiveConstant; perpetual; ceaseless; ever-present.

   1 more example

   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.

   1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC

4. datedExceedingly great or bad; used as an intensifier.

   some eternal villain

   Synonyms: awful

plural eternals · alternative obsolete æternal · alternative obsolete æternall · alternative obsolete eternall

1. One who lives forever; an immortal.

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

   2012, D. E. Phoenix, Revelations of the Fallen: The Blasphemy of Astrial Belthromoto