everlasting
Definitions & Usage
Lasting or enduring forever; endless, eternal.
Continuing for a long period; eternal.
Happening all the time, especially to a tiresome extent; constant, incessant, unending.
Of clothing or fabric: lasting a long time; very durable or hard-wearing.
Chiefly in the name of a plant:
Used as an intensifier.
Synonym of everlastingly.
(countable, botany) Chiefly with a descriptive word: short for everlasting flower (“any of several plants, chiefly of the family Asteraceae (principally the tribe Gnaphalieae), having flowers that retain their colour and form when dried; also, a flower of such a plant”)
(countable, archaic) Preceded by the: someone or something that lasts forever, or that that has always existed and will continue to exist forever; an eternal, an immortal; specifically (Christianity), God.
Synonym of lasting (“(uncountable) a durable, plain, woven fabric formerly used for making clothes and for the uppers of women's shoes; (countable) a quantity of such fabric”).
Short for everlasting trimming (“(uncountable) an embroidered edging used on underclothes; (countable) a quantity of such edging”)
Notable Literary & Historical Quotes
“And vvhether vve ſhall meete againe, I knovv not: / Therefore our euerlaſting farevvell take: / For euer, and for euer, farevvell, Caſſius, / If vve do meete againe, vvhy vve ſhall ſmile; / If not, vvhy then this parting vvas vvell made.”
— 1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i], page 128, column 1:
“And I will giue vnto thee, and to thy ſeed after thee, the land wherein thou art a ſtranger, all the land of Canaan, for an euerlaſting poſſeſſion, and I will be their God.”
— 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Genesis 17:8, signature B2, recto, column 2:
“VVhy, in Heaven I ſhall have an everlaſting Holyday of Pleaſure.”
— 1649, Richard Baxter, “An Example of this Heavenly Contemplation, for the Help of the Unskilful”, in The Saints Everlasting Rest: Or, A Treatise of the Blessed State of the Saints in Their Enjoyment of God in Glory. […], London: […] Rob[ert] White, for Thomas Underhil and Francis Tyton, […], →OCLC, part IV (Containing a Directory for the Getting and Keeping of the Heart in Heaven: […]), section 2, page 807: