Perennial
adj, noun ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A plant that is active throughout the year, or has a life cycle of more than two growing seasons.
"One would have supposed from the appearance of the country at the end of the first season after the eruption that practically all plants except the trees and bushes had been destroyed, and that revegetation must be due to new seedlings started on the ash. Such, however, is not the case. Excavation of the root systems of the new plants shows that they are old perennials which have come through the ash from the old soil."
- 2 (botany) a plant lasting for three seasons or more wordnet
- 3 A thing that lasts forever. broadly
- 4 A person or thing (such as a problem) that appears or returns regularly. broadly
"Some of the stars on our list are perennials who fill huge venues year after year after year, but there's also a returning superstar on our list of the hottest summer tours of 2019."
- 1 Lasting or remaining active throughout the year, for multiple years, or all the time. not-comparable
"a perennial stream"
- 2 Continuing without cessation or intermission for several years, or for an undetermined or infinite period; never-ending or never failing; perpetual, unceasing. figuratively, not-comparable
"His artwork has a perennial beauty."
- 3 Appearing or recurring again and again; recurrent. figuratively, not-comparable
"a perennial candidate in elections"
- 4 Appearing or recurring again and again; recurrent.; Appearing again each year; annual. figuratively, not-comparable, rare
- 5 Of a plant: active throughout the year, or having a life cycle of more than two growing seasons. not-comparable
- 1 recurring again and again wordnet
- 2 lasting three seasons or more wordnet
- 3 lasting an indefinitely long time; suggesting self-renewal wordnet
Example
More examples"The oligarchic character of the modern English commonwealth does not rest, like many oligarchies, on the cruelty of the rich to the poor. It does not even rest on the kindness of the rich to the poor. It rests on the perennial and unfailing kindness of the poor to the rich."
Etymology
The adjective is borrowed from Latin perennis (“lasting through the whole year or for several years, perennial; continual, everlasting, perpetual”) + English -al (suffix meaning ‘of or pertaining to’ forming adjectives). Perennis is derived from per- (“completive or intensifying prefix with the sense of doing something all the way through or entirely”) + annus (“year; season, time”) (possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂et- (“to go”)). By surface analysis, per- + -ennial. The noun is derived from the adjective. Cognates * Middle French pérenne (modern French pérenne (“lasting through the whole year, perennial”)) * Italian perenne (“lasting for a long time”) * Spanish perenne (“eternal; permanent; a perennial plant”)
Related phrases
More for "perennial"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.