Forever

//fəˈɹɛvə(ɹ)// adj, adv, noun, slang

adj, adv, noun, slang ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An extremely long time. colloquial, countable

    "I haven't seen him in forever!"

  2. 2
    Alternative form of forever. alt-of, alternative, poetic, uncountable
  3. 3
    A mythical time in the future that will never come. colloquial, poetic, uncountable

    "Sure, I'd be happy to meet with you on the 12th of forever."

Adjective
  1. 1
    Permanent, lasting; constant, perpetual. informal, not-comparable

    "It'd be a peaceful life / With a forever wife / And a kid someday"

Adverb
  1. 1
    For all time, for all eternity; for a lifetime; for an infinite amount of time. not-comparable

    "I shall love you forever."

  2. 2
    For a very long time, a seeming eternity. colloquial, excessive, not-comparable

    "We had to wait forever to get inside."

  3. 3
    Constantly or frequently. not-comparable

    "You are forever nagging me."

Adverb
  1. 1
    invariably wordnet
  2. 2
    for a limitless time wordnet
  3. 3
    for a very long or seemingly endless time wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
alwayseternallyevermorefor goodforevermoreforever and day

Example

More examples

"It would take forever for me to explain everything."

Etymology

Univerbation of for ever, from Middle English for ever, for evere. By surface analysis, for + ever. First attested in the late 14c., and first attested in the late 17c. as one word. Noun first attested in 1858.

Related phrases

best friend foreverforever afterforever aloneforever and a dayforever and ayforever and everforever and foreverforever chemicalforever homeforever houseforever stampforever war

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.