eternal
Direct German Translations & Equivalents:
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Definitions & Usage
(philosophy) Existing outside time; as opposed to sempiternal, existing within time but everlastingly.
(hyperbolic) Constant; perpetual; ceaseless; ever-present.
(dated) Exceedingly great or bad; used as an intensifier.
One who lives forever; an immortal.
Notable Literary & Historical Quotes
“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: