Eternal

How to spell eternal

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce eternal

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does eternal mean?

1. adjectiveLasting or existing forever, without beginning or end; or seeming to continue endlessly.

Eternal in a sentence

• The couple exchanged vows promising eternal devotion to each other.

• Residents complained about the eternal roadworks that blocked the high street for months.

Where does eternal come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin aeternus, meaning 'everlasting' or 'enduring forever', which was itself built on aevum, a noun for an 'age' or 'lifetime'. Late Latin reshaped it into aeternalis, and from there it passed into Old French as eternel before English adopted it in the 1300s. The original sense of unending time has stayed remarkably stable, covering both literal endlessness and the looser everyday exaggeration of something that simply seems to last forever. The same aevum root survives in the English words 'age' and 'longevity', and even in 'medieval' (literally the 'middle age'). The spelling trap is the unstressed middle vowel: it is written 'eter-' and not 'eternel' or 'aeternal', so the ending settles on plain '-al'.

How the word is built

• etern- (from Latin aeternus: everlasting, from aevum 'age, lifetime')
• -al (adjective suffix)