Meanings
- Seeming to never end; endlessly; constantly.
Now her work dropped on her knee, and her book fell from her hand; she was perpetually seeking excuses for change of place; and the change brought added discomfort.
1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “A First Disappointment”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, pages 268–2693 more examples
For whiche offence oure holy fader the pope enioyned hym to make hym to be prayed for perpetually / ⁊ lyke as he had done too be taken frome hym his naturall lyfe therfore he ſholde do foũde four tapers to brẽne perpetually about his body yͭ for yͤ extynccõn of his bodely lyf his ſoule may euer be remẽbred ⁊ lyf in heuẽ in ſpyrytuall lyfe
[1502], Chronycle of Englonde, [London]: [Wynkyn de Worde], →OCLCBut, like more than one similar North Wales beauty-spot, there had to be (at least at the time of which I write), a quarry, or ironworks, or some kind of industrial plant, which lay perpetually under a cloud of yellowish smoke—literally a blot on the landscape.
1955 January, R. S. McNaught, “From the Severn to the Mersey by Great Western”, in Railway Magazine, pages 18-19Have you tried doing it yourself? It's not easy. I was hoping to illustrate this article with some self-created buzzwords for leftwingers to use. The first one I came up with was "molehill mountaineer", a pejorative term to describe the sort of perpetually furious rightwing weevil who spends their life calculatedly conflating issues such as the "Ground Zero mosque" into gigantic media crapgasms.
2010 August 30, Charlie Brooker, “Buzzwords for blowhards”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 30 May 2023Synonyms: ceaselessly, incessantly, nonstop
Synonyms & antonyms
adverbSeeming to never end; endlessly; constantly.
More synonyms by meaning
adverbinvariably
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
- Middle Englishperpetuelly
- Englishperpetually
From Middle English perpetuelly; equivalent to perpetual + -ly.
More words from Middle English
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Catalan perpètuament, perpetualment
- perpètuamentseeming to never end
- perpetualmentseeming to never end
Czech neustále
- neustáleseeming to never end
Finnish jatkuvasti, ikuisesti
- jatkuvastiseeming to never end
- ikuisestiseeming to never end
- alituiseenseeming to never end
- lakkaamattaseeming to never end
French perpétuellement
- perpétuellementseeming to never end
German ewig
- ewigseeming to never end
Greek αέναα
- αέναα (aénaa)seeming to never end
Irish de ghréas
- de ghréasseeming to never end
Italian perpetuamente
- perpetuamenteseeming to never end
Latin perpetuē, iūgiter
- perpetuēseeming to never end
- iūgiterseeming to never end
Polish bezustannie, wiecznie
- bezustannieseeming to never end
- wiecznieseeming to never end
Portuguese perpetuamente
- perpetuamenteseeming to never end
Romanian perpetuu
- perpetuuseeming to never end
Spanish perpetuamente
- perpetuamenteseeming to never end
Cite this entry
perpetually. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/perpetually
“perpetually.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/perpetually. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “perpetually,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/perpetually.
Source: perpetually on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.