eternally, adv.
(iːˈtɜːnəlɪ)
[f. as prec. + -ly2.]
In an eternal manner.
1. Chiefly with reference to God: ‘From everlasting and to everlasting’.
| a 1385 Chaucer L.G.W. 2226 Philomene, Thow..that hast wrought This fayre world, & bar it In thyn thought Eternaly [v.r. eternally] er thow thyn werk beganne. 1594 Hooker Eccl. Pol. i. xvi, The lawe which God with himselfe hath eternally set downe. 1677 Hale Prim. Orig. Man. i. iii. 86 If it were eternally altered, or eternally corrupted, then it was eternally, and eternally was not; it was eternally without alteration, and eternally altered. 1839 Bailey Festus (1852) 344 What comes before and after the great world..God alone knows eternally. |
2. a. Without end; for ever; throughout eternity.
| c 1393 Chaucer Scogan 2 To-brokene ben þe statutis in heuene Þat creat were eternally [v.r. eternaly] to dure. c 1430 Syr. Gener. (Roxb.) ad fin., To heven blis forto wende Eternallie there to be. 1549 Bk. Com. Prayer, Burial of Dead, Whosoeuer liueth, and beleueth in hym, shal not dye eternallye. 1595 W. C. Clarke in Shaks. C. Praise 15 Bartasse, eternally praiseworthie for his weeks worke. 1654 Earl of Orrery Parthenissa (1676) 575 Then the survivor, fetching two or three groans over his dead enemy, fell down eternally by his side. 1746–7 Hervey Medit. (1818) 76 Would they not bless the grave..and wish to lie eternally hid in its deepest gloom? |
b. hyperbolically.
| 1664 Sir C. Lyttelton in Hatton Corr. (1878) 43 Y{supr}{sups}, eturnally. 1850 W. R. Ryan Upper & Lower California I. 310 If you'll sell it me..I'll be etarnally obliged to you. |
3. With perpetual recurrence; continually, constantly, incessantly.
| 1670 Cotton Espernon Pref., The Duke himself being so eternally upon the Scene of Action, that we shall seldom find him retir'd. 1712 Arbuthnot John Bull (1755) 31 The other was eternally drunk. 1793 Smeaton Edystone L. §246, I found it eternally rung in my ears from all quarters. 1884 F. M. Crawford Rom. Singer I. 14 Nor is he eternally pulling a pair of monstrous white cuffs over his hands. |
4. Immutably, unalterably.
| a 1716 South (J.), That which is morally good..must be also eternally and unchangeably so. 1878 Hopps Princ. Relig. viii. 26 There is such a thing as the eternally right and the unchangeably good. |