perpetually

English

Etymology

From Middle English perpetuelly; equivalent to perpetual +‎ -ly.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /pəˈpɛtʃʊəli/, /pəˈpɛtjʊəli/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /pɚˈpɛt͡ʃuəli/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: per‧pet‧u‧al‧ly

Adverb

perpetually

1. Seeming to never end; endlessly; constantly.
   • [1502], Chronycle of Englonde‎^[1], [London]: [Wynkyn de Worde], →OCLC:

     For whiche offence oure holy fader the pope enioyned hym to make hym to be prayed for perpetually / ⁊ lyke as he had done too be taken frome hym his naturall lyfe therfore he ſholde do foũde four tapers to brẽne perpetually about his body yͭ for yͤ extynccõn of his bodely lyf his ſoule may euer be remẽbred ⁊ lyf in heuẽ in ſpyrytuall lyfe

   • 1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “A First Disappointment”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, pages 268–269:

     Now her work dropped on her knee, and her book fell from her hand; she was perpetually seeking excuses for change of place; and the change brought added discomfort.

   • 1955 January, R. S. McNaught, “From the Severn to the Mersey by Great Western”, in Railway Magazine, pages 18-19:

     But, like more than one similar North Wales beauty-spot, there had to be (at least at the time of which I write), a quarry, or ironworks, or some kind of industrial plant, which lay perpetually under a cloud of yellowish smoke—literally a blot on the landscape.

   • 2010 August 30, Charlie Brooker, “Buzzwords for blowhards”, in The Guardian‎^[2], archived from the original on 30 May 2023:

     Have you tried doing it yourself? It's not easy. I was hoping to illustrate this article with some self-created buzzwords for leftwingers to use. The first one I came up with was "molehill mountaineer", a pejorative term to describe the sort of perpetually furious rightwing weevil who spends their life calculatedly conflating issues such as the "Ground Zero mosque" into gigantic media crapgasms.

Synonyms

• ceaselessly, incessantly, nonstop; see also Thesaurus:continuously

Translations

seeming to never end

• Catalan: perpètuament (ca), perpetualment
• Czech: neustále (cs)
• Finnish: jatkuvasti (fi), ikuisesti (fi), alituiseen, lakkaamatta
• French: perpétuellement (fr)
• Galician: perpetuamente
• German: ewig (de)
• Greek: αέναα (el) (aénaa)
• Irish: de ghréas
• Italian: perpetuamente (it)
• Latin: perpetuē, iūgiter
• Plautdietsch: eewichlich
• Polish: bezustannie (pl)
• Portuguese: perpetuamente (pt)
• Romanian: perpetuu (ro)
• Spanish: perpetuamente (es)
• Tocharian B: ṣek