perpetual
/pəˈpɛtʃʊəl
/adjective
1Never ending or changing: deep caves in perpetual darkness...
- His subjects were taught that he created the dawn of each new day, so that his death in 1994 provoked fear of perpetual darkness.
- Some labor under the delusion that Alaska is smitten with almost perpetual darkness in winter and never ending light in the summer.
- Sontag saw the consequence of living in this perpetual state of fear as ‘an unparalleled violence that is being done to our sense of reality, our humanity’.
Synonyms
everlasting, never-ending, eternal, permanent, unending, endless, without end, lasting, long-lasting, constant, abiding, enduring, perennial, timeless, ageless, deathless, undying, immortal;
unfailing, unchanging, never-changing, changeless, unvarying, unfading, invariable, immutable, indissoluble, indestructible, imperishable
rare sempiternal, perdurable
constant, permanent, uninterrupted, continuous, unremitting, unending, unceasing, persistent, unbroken
1.1 [attributive] Denoting or having a position, job, or trophy held for life: a perpetual secretary of the society...
- Their intention is, to crush all opposition, to their personal, perpetual world rule.
- According to Clark, an unrestricted market with absolute and perpetual land titles is sufficient to allocate land efficiently and distribute rent fairly.
- The ladies Cup, for which yachts competed at Rosses Point at the weekend is reputed to be the oldest perpetual trophy in the world for which sailors still compete.
1.2(Of an investment) having no fixed maturity date; irredeemable: a perpetual bond...
- Indeed banks issue perpetual bonds that have no maturity date.
- In valuing equation, i should be the U.S. government perpetual bond yield representing the risk free rate for an infinite time horizon.
- Those bonds issued by building societies that subsequently floated on the stock market are referred to as perpetual subordinated bonds (PSBs).
2Occurring repeatedly; so frequent as to seem endless and uninterrupted: their perpetual money worries...
- Now he took his anger out on all three of them, including Summer, whose poor grades and frequent partying were perpetual sources of disappointment.
- Many of the small and shrinking group of health researchers in Pakistan work in a state of perpetual despondency, frequently with little access to policymakers and planners.
- Meanwhile, there remained that perpetual money question.
Synonyms
interminable, incessant, ceaseless, endless, without respite, relentless, unrelenting, persistent, frequent, continual, continuous, non-stop, never-ending, recurrent, repeated, unremitting, sustained, round-the-clock, always-on, habitual, chronic, unabating
informal eternal
3(Of a plant) blooming or fruiting several times in one season: he grows perpetual flowering carnations...
- He grows perpetual carnations, a laborious and painstaking business, putting a collar on each one to prevent it from splitting before a show.
Origin
Middle English: from Old French perpetuel, from Latin perpetualis, from perpetuus 'continuing throughout', from perpes, perpet- 'continuous'.