Ever

How to spell ever

4 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce ever

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does ever mean?

1. adverbAt any time at all, often used in questions, negatives, or comparisons.
2. adverbAlways or continually, marking a state that goes on without stopping or keeps increasing.

Ever in a sentence

• It was the best meal she had ever cooked.

• The queue grew ever longer as the morning went on.

• Hardly anyone ever reads the fine print on the contract.

• She remained ever patient with the difficult clients.

Where does ever come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native English word that descends from the Old English aefre, meaning 'at any time' or 'always'. Its deeper history is genuinely murky, but most scholars connect it to a, an old element meaning 'always' or 'ever', perhaps reinforced by an emphatic ending; the spelling settled early and the word has stayed remarkably stable for over a thousand years. From the start it carried both of its modern jobs: marking 'at any point in time' in questions and negatives, and 'continually, always' in steady use. Over the centuries it spawned a large family of everyday compounds such as 'everyone', 'everything', 'forever', 'however' and 'whatever', which shows how productive this little word became. Because it is short, phonetically regular and learned in childhood, the spelling almost never trips people up; the only related confusion is with the entirely separate word 'every', which simply attached an extra ending to the same root.

How the word is built

• ever (from Old English aefre: at any time); a single unanalysable adverb, not built from a prefix and root