lasting

comparative more lasting · superlative most lasting

1. Persisting for an extended period of time.

   After World War I it was hoped that a lasting peace had been achieved. It hadn’t.

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   I was taken to the theatre for the first time when I was six years old, and the experience made a lasting impression on me.

   hasty wroth, and heedlesse hazardry Doe breede repentaunce late, and lasting infamy.

   1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto V”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 249

   Look ye, Marriage is a lasting thing—if it were for six Months only, I might venture upon thee—but for all days of my Life—mercy upon me […]

   1706, Susanna Centlivre, Love at a Venture, London: John Chantry, act V, page 63

   I knew that nought was lasting, but now even Change grows too changeable, without being new:

   1823 August 29, [Lord Byron], Don Juan. Cantos IX.—X.—and XI., London: […] [C. H. Reynell] for John Hunt, […], →OCLC, canto XI, (please specify the stanza number)

   Then his son bought a carven coffin hewn from a great log of fragrant wood which is used to bury the dead in and for nothing else because that wood is as lasting as iron, and more lasting than human bones, and Wang Lung was comforted.

   1931, Pearl S. Buck, chapter 34, in The Good Earth, New York: Modern Library, published 1944, page 311

   Synonyms: abiding, durable

2. obsoletePersisting forever.

   Things that are first must give place, but things that are last, are lasting.

   1678, John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World, to That which is to Come: […], London: […] Nath[aniel] Ponder […], →OCLC, page 24

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   I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan, Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death, And from the organ-pipe of frailty sings His soul and body to their lasting rest.

   c. 1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene vii]

   Synonyms: eternal, everlasting, ageful, agelong, amaranthine, celestial, endless, enduring

1. gerundparticiplepresentpresent participle and gerund of last

plural lastings

1. countablehistoricaluncountablebusinessIn full lasting cloth: a durable, plain woven fabric formerly used for making clothes and for the uppers of women's shoes.

   Synonyms: everlasting

2. countableuncountableshoemakingThe act or process of shaping footwear on a last.
3. countableobsoleteuncountableThe action or state of persisting; the time during which something or someone persists.

   But concerning the several degrees of lasting, wherewith Ideas are imprinted on the Memory, we may observe […]

   1689 (indicated as 1690), [John Locke], chapter 10, in An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding. […], London: […] Eliz[abeth] Holt, for Thomas Basset, […], →OCLC, book II, § 4, page 65

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   1598, I. D. (possibly John Dee) (translator), Aristotles Politiques, or Discourses of Gouernment, London: Adam Islip, Chapter 12, p. 334, But all things that haue beginning, must come to an end, and whatsoeuer groweth, must likewise deminish, being subiect to corruption and change, according to the time appointed vnto it by the course of Nature, as is seene by experience in plants, and in wights, which haue their ages and lastings certaine and determined.

   […] it may be some kinde of Prophecy, of the continuance, and lasting of these Letters, that having been scattered, more then Sibyls leaves, I cannot say into parts, but corners of the World, they have recollected and united themselves […]

   1651, John Donne, Letters to Severall Persons of Honour, London: Richard Marriot, dedicatory epistle

   Synonyms: continuance, duration, endurance