eternal

• æternal (chiefly archaic)
• æternall, eternall (obsolete)

From Middle English eternal, from Old French eternal, from Late Latin aeternālis, from Latin aeternus (“eternal”), from aevum (“age”). Displaced native Old English ēċe.

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ɪˈtɝnəl/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɪˈtɜːnəl/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)nəl
• Hyphenation: eter‧nal

eternal (not comparable)

1. Lasting forever; unending.
   • 1690, Locke, John, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding:

     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.

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

     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.

   • 2008, BioWare, Mass Effect (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, OCLC 246633669, PC, scene: Virmire:

     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.

   • 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:

     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.

   Synonyms: agelong, endless, everlasting, permanent, sempiternal, unending; see also Thesaurus:eternal

   Antonyms: ephemeral, momentary, transient; see also Thesaurus:ephemeral

2. (philosophy) existing outside time; as opposed to sempiternal, existing within time but everlastingly

   Synonyms: timeless, atemporal; see also Thesaurus:timeless

3. (hyperbolic) Constant; perpetual; ceaseless; ever-present.
   • 1912, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World‎:

     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.

4. (dated) Exceedingly great or bad; used as an intensifier.

   some eternal villain

   Synonym: awful

May be used postpositively, as in peace eternal, possibly as a result of Latin influence.[1]

eternal (plural eternals)

1. One who lives forever; an immortal.
   • 2012, D. E. Phoenix, Revelations of the Fallen: The Blasphemy of Astrial Belthromoto:

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

• enteral, teneral

From Latin aeternālis, attested from the 14th century.[1]

• (Balearic) IPA^(key): /ə.təɾˈnal/
• (Central) IPA^(key): /ə.tərˈnal/
• (Valencian) IPA^(key): /e.teɾˈnal/

eternal (masculine and feminine plural eternals)

1. eternal

   Synonym: etern

• “eternal” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
• “eternal” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “eternal” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

From Latin aeternālis.

eternal m or f (plural eternais)

1. (formal) eternal

   Synonym: eterno

• “eternal” in Dicionario da Real Academia Galega, Royal Galician Academy.

• eterneel, eternall

Borrowed from Old French eternal, eternel, from Latin aeternālis; equivalent to eterne +‎ -al.

• IPA^(key): /ɛːtɛrˈnaːl/, /ɛːˈtɛrnal/, /ɛːtɛrˈnɛːl/

eternal

1. Eternal, permanent; having existed (and existing) forever.
2. Endless, unending; lasting forever.
3. (rare) Long-lasting; non-ephemeral.

• eterne

• English: eternal, tarnal
• Scots: eternal

• “ēternā̆l, -ē̆l, adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2019-01-19.

From Latin aeternālis.

• Audio (Languedocien)

  (file)

eternal m (feminine singular eternala, masculine plural eternals, feminine plural eternalas)

1. eternal

   Synonym: etèrn

Borrowed from Latin aeternālis.

eternal m or f (plural eternais, not comparable)

1. eternal

   Synonym: eterno

• “eternal” in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa.

From Latin aeternālis.

• IPA^(key): /eteɾˈnal/ [e.t̪eɾˈnal]
• Rhymes: -al
• Syllabification: e‧ter‧nal

eternal (plural eternales)

1. eternal

   Synonym: eterno

• “eternal”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014