abiding
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of abiding
Explanation
Something abiding sticks around, lasting a long time. Abiding is usually used with feelings and memories — as in your abiding love for Elmo. Abiding comes from the Old English abidan, gebidan meaning "remain, wait, delay, remain behind." It's a word that's typically used to describe a feeling or memory that remains behind or lingers in your mind a while. You can have an abiding faith in God, or an abiding respect for war veterans or an abiding passion. "Law-abiding citizens" are those people who stick strictly to the law. They always use the crosswalk and pay their taxes on time.
Vocabulary lists containing abiding
The Things They Carried
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Black Boy
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Twelve Years a Slave
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
That title is something of a metaphor, about connecting to a deep, abiding spirituality accessible to us all.
From Salon ● Sep. 30, 2026
Regardless of what station they work for, reporters and pilots are constantly helping each other, abiding by unspoken rules to keep each other safe.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 19, 2026
What they really want is to be quasi-banks without abiding by the same regulations.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026
Writing on social media, she said: "We cannot allow anyone to come to our Union without abiding by our rules."
From BBC ● Aug. 1, 2026
For several weeks it was not at all clear whether Jefferson would become the next abiding occupant, because the final tally of the electoral vote had produced a tie between him and Burr.
From "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
