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ETERNITY
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I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A state of eternal existence believed in some religions to characterize the afterlife
Synonyms:
eternity; timeless existence; timelessness
Classified under:
Nouns denoting stable states of affairs
Hypernyms ("eternity" is a kind of...):
being; beingness; existence; face of the earth (the state or fact of existing)
Derivation:
eternal (continuing forever or indefinitely)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Time without end
Synonyms:
eternity; infinity
Classified under:
Nouns denoting time and temporal relations
Hypernyms ("eternity" is a kind of...):
time (the continuum of experience in which events pass from the future through the present to the past)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "eternity"):
alpha and omega (the first and last; signifies God's eternity)
Sense 3
Meaning:
A seemingly endless time interval (waiting)
Classified under:
Nouns denoting time and temporal relations
Hypernyms ("eternity" is a kind of...):
interval; time interval (a definite length of time marked off by two instants)
Derivation:
eternal (tiresomely long; seemingly without end)
Context examples:
Eternity is eternity, and though you die here and now you will go on living somewhere else and hereafter.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
And so for full half a minute, which seemed an eternity, she remained between the lifted crucifix and the sacred closing of her means of entry.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
Religion called—Angels beckoned—God commanded—life rolled together like a scroll—death's gates opening, showed eternity beyond: it seemed, that for safety and bliss there, all here might be sacrificed in a second.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
Bah! An eternity of piggishness!
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
'This life,' said I at last, 'is hell: this is the air—those are the sounds of the bottomless pit! I have a right to deliver myself from it if I can. The sufferings of this mortal state will leave me with the heavy flesh that now cumbers my soul. Of the fanatic's burning eternity I have no fear: there is not a future state worse than this present one—let me break away, and go home to God!'
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
Each man felt that he had been robbed; and the boats were hoisted in amid curses, which, if curses had power, would have settled Death Larsen for all eternity—Dead and damned for a dozen iv eternities, commented Louis, his eyes twinkling up at me as he rested from hauling taut the lashings of his boat.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
And in this was portrayed the victory of the spirit over the flesh, the indomitability and moral grandeur of the soul that knows no restriction and rises above time and space and matter with a surety and invincibleness born of nothing else than eternity and immortality.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
