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#715 of 5,000 Core 1000

Translation

eternal, everlasting; immortal

Examples

promissa .

Eternal life has been promised.

.

God is eternal.

regnabit.

He will reign for ever.

puniti .

They were punished with everlasting fire.

Roma .

Rome is called the eternal city.

Aeternus, aeterna, aeternum declines like bonus and is contracted from an older aeviternus, "lasting an age", built on aevum. The adverbial phrase to know is in aeternum, "for ever", with the accusative; ablative aeterno also occurs.

The corpus is heavily ecclesiastical, so it turns up constantly and in fixed phrases: vita aeterna, requiem aeternam, ignis aeternus, Pater aeterne. Worth noticing that even in classical Latin it is a strong word. Perpetuus means unbroken and sempiternus means going on and on; aeternus claims a different order of duration, outside time rather than long inside it, which is precisely why Christian writers seized on it. If a text picks aeternus over perpetuus, that is usually deliberate. English keeps eternal, eternity and sempiternal.

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Latin · Free printables

aeternus: worksheet, infographic and listicle

Free printable study downloads for the Latin word "aeternus" (eternal, everlasting; immortal): a worksheet with the answer key built in, an infographic, and a sentence listicle. Open any one to view, print or save.

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This word is part of lesson 15.