Evergreen

How to spell evergreen

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce evergreen

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does evergreen mean?

1. adjectiveDescribing a plant or tree that keeps its green leaves throughout the entire year.
2. nounA tree, shrub or plant that retains green foliage throughout the year.
3. adjectiveRemaining perpetually fresh, popular or relevant, never becoming dated.

Evergreen in a sentence

• adjective

  The garden centre stocked several evergreen shrubs that thrive in winter.

• noun

  The slope was covered with dark evergreen that stayed lush all winter.

• adjective

  The marketing team focused on evergreen articles that would draw readers for years.

• adjective

  Pines and firs are evergreen trees that never lose their needles in autumn.

• noun

  He chose a sturdy evergreen for the corner of the yard.

• adjective

  That ballad has proved an evergreen favourite across several generations.

Where does evergreen come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Evergreen is a native English compound, built straightforwardly from two old Anglo-Saxon words. The first part, 'ever', comes from Old English 'aefre', meaning 'always' or 'at all times', the same word that survives in 'every' and 'never'. The second part, 'green', descends from Old English 'grene', which itself is related to 'grow' and 'grass', all sharing a Germanic root tied to growing things. Joined together, the compound literally means 'always green', a vivid description of plants such as pines, hollies and firs that keep their leaves through winter rather than shedding them. The word came into common use around the early 1600s, and its modern figurative sense, describing something that stays perpetually fresh or relevant (as in 'evergreen content'), grew naturally from the image of a plant that never fades.

How the word is built

• ever (Old English aefre: always, at all times)
• green (Old English grene: the colour green)