immortality
AmericanEtymology
Origin of immortality
1300–50; Middle English immortalite < Latin immortālitās. See immortal, -ity
Explanation
If you achieve immortality that means you’ll live forever. If you find a magic potion, maybe you can literally live forever. Otherwise you’ll have to gain immortality by doing something so great that people never forget you. You may believe immortality can be achieved if you drink enough carrot juice, but so far humans haven’t figured out the secret to living forever. Instead, you’ll often hear immortality used to in relation to magnificent accomplishments. You may gain immortality by painting great works of art, like Michelangelo, or by being a great slugger, like Babe Ruth. The achievements live on, and the fame keeps your memory alive, forever! Or at least for a really long time.
Vocabulary lists containing immortality
American Born Chinese
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"Because I Could Not Stop for Death" by Emily Dickinson
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Vocabulary from "There Will Never Be an Age of Artificial Intimacy," by Sherry Turkle
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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.
Immortality offers a liberation that the Jim Crow-era South doesn’t, both for the Black characters and even the white ones, whose bigoted special status winds up narrowing their options.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 17, 2025
His 1979 work The Book of Laughter and Forgetting spanned seven narratives and containing elements of the magic realism genre, while in 1988 he wrote one of his best novels, Immortality.
From BBC • Jul. 12, 2023
Immortality might seem like the stuff of science fiction, yet it’s increasingly becoming the focus of real science.
From Washington Post • May 1, 2022
Immortality comes to Xbox Game Pass this summer.
From The Verge • Mar. 16, 2022
This thought process is not exactly a helpful distraction, so I even give number 22, “Contemplate the afterlife,” on my to-do list a try, and read some of Life, Death, and Immortality.
From "Five Feet Apart" by Rachael Lippincott
Definitions 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.
