Permanent

//ˈpɜː.mə.nənt// adj, noun, verb

adj, noun, verb ·Common ·Middle school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A chemical hair treatment imparting or removing curliness, whose effects typically last for a period of weeks; a perm.

    "She had pewter-coloured hair set in a ruthless permanent, a hard beak and large moist eyes with the sympathetic expression of wet stones."

  2. 2
    a series of waves in the hair made by applying heat and chemicals wordnet
  3. 3
    Given an n×n matrix a_ij,, the sum over all permutations π, of ∏ᵢ₌₁ⁿa_iπ(i).
  4. 4
    A card whose effects persist beyond the turn on which it is played.
Verb
  1. 1
    To perm (the hair). dated, transitive
Adjective
  1. 1
    Without end, eternal.

    "Nothing in this world is truly permanent."

  2. 2
    Lasting for an indefinitely long time.

    "The countries are now locked in a permanent state of conflict."

Adjective
  1. 1
    continuing or enduring without marked change in status or condition or place wordnet
  2. 2
    not capable of being reversed or returned to the original condition wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
enduringirreversiblepermanent waveperpetualabidingafro

Example

More examples

"Please give me your permanent address."

Etymology

From Middle English permanent, permanente, from Middle French permanent, from Latin permanēns, from permaneō (“I stay through”). First attested in the 15th century.

Related phrases

permanent brainpermanent contractpermanent dirtpermanent income hypothesispermanent loanpermanent magnetpermanent markerpermanent missionpermanent paperpermanent presspermanent private hallpermanent residency

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