Eternally

How to spell eternally

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce eternally

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does eternally mean?

1. adverbIn a way that lasts forever or continues without end.

Eternally in a sentence

• The diamond company claims its gems will sparkle eternally.

• He remained eternally grateful to the surgeon who saved his life.

Where does eternally come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word traces back to the Latin aeternus, meaning 'everlasting' or 'without end', which was itself built from aevum, a noun for 'an age' or 'a lifetime'. The sense therefore moved from 'lasting an age' to 'lasting for all time'. Latin produced the adverb aeternaliter, and the adjective passed into Old French as eternel before reaching English in the 1300s as 'eternal'. English then formed the adverb 'eternally' by adding the native ending -ly. A useful spelling memory is that the same aevum root sits behind words like 'age' and 'longevity', and that the modern English form has dropped the Latin opening 'ae-' to a plain single 'e', so the trap lies later in the word: the unstressed '-ally' ending and the single 'n'.

How the word is built

• etern- (from Latin aeternus: everlasting)
• -al (adjective suffix)
• -ly (adverb suffix)