Perpetual

How to spell perpetual

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce perpetual

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does perpetual mean?

1. adjectiveContinuing without interruption or appearing to last forever.

Perpetual in a sentence

• The leaking pipe was a source of perpetual frustration for the tenants.

• Living next to the motorway means a perpetual hum of traffic.

Where does perpetual come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Perpetual comes from the Latin perpetualis, meaning 'continuous' or 'universal', which was built on perpetuus, 'continuing throughout'. That word in turn joins per, meaning 'through' or 'throughout', with a form related to petere, the verb 'to seek' or 'to make for', so the literal sense was something that keeps going right through without a break. English took the word in the 1300s by way of Old French perpetuel, and it has kept its meaning of 'never ending' ever since. The same petere root surfaces in a whole family of English words, including 'petition', 'appetite' and 'compete', all of which carry a sense of seeking or striving toward something. The spelling trap sits in the middle: the unstressed 'pet' and the soft '-tual' ending are easy to muddle, and writers sometimes drop a letter or swap in '-tial'.

How the word is built

• per- (through, throughout)
• petu- (from petere: to seek, to go toward)
• -al (adjective suffix)