ETERNAL

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does eternal mean? 

• ETERNAL (adjective)
  The adjective ETERNAL has 2 senses:

1. continuing forever or indefinitely

2. tiresomely long; seemingly without end

  Familiarity information: ETERNAL used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ETERNAL (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Continuing forever or indefinitely

Synonyms:

aeonian; ageless; eonian; eternal; everlasting; perpetual; unceasing; unending

Context example:

the unending bliss of heaven

Similar:

lasting; permanent (continuing or enduring without marked change in status or condition or place)

Derivation:

eternity (a state of eternal existence believed in some religions to characterize the afterlife)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Tiresomely long; seemingly without end

Synonyms:

endless; eternal; interminable

Context example:

an interminable sermon

Similar:

long (primarily temporal sense; being or indicating a relatively great or greater than average duration or passage of time or a duration as specified)

Derivation:

eternity (a seemingly endless time interval (waiting))

 Context examples 

I came into the valley, as the evening sun was shining on the remote heights of snow, that closed it in, like eternal clouds.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

And promptly urged his ambition to grasp at eternal life.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

The eternal cigarette smouldered in his mouth.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Her mother's affliction was hardly less, and Elinor was the only one of the three, who seemed to consider the separation as any thing short of eternal.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

We encountered it well up to the forty-fourth parallel, in a raw and stormy sea across which the wind harried the fog-banks in eternal flight.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

“May the four Evangelists watch over you! May the twelve Apostles bear you up! May the blessed army of martyrs direct your feet and lead you to eternal bliss!”

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

By what instinct do you pretend to distinguish between a fallen seraph of the abyss and a messenger from the eternal throne—between a guide and a seducer?

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

‘Frankenstein! you belong then to my enemy—to him towards whom I have sworn eternal revenge; you shall be my first victim.’

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

His was that eternal tragedy of the aged, with whom the joy of life has departed and the instinct for death has not come.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

Prettier musings of high-wrought love and eternal constancy, could never have passed along the streets of Bath, than Anne was sporting with from Camden Place to Westgate Buildings.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)