enduring
Americanadjective
-
lasting; permanent.
a poet of enduring greatness.
-
patient; long-suffering.
adjective
-
permanent; lasting
-
having forbearance; long-suffering
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of enduring
Explanation
Many people have an enduring love for ice cream, that is, they have loved it for a long time and will continue to love it into the future. Enduring means long-lasting. Enduring has roots that go back about 1,500 years to the Late Latin period. It is quite an enduring word! The original root meant hard, so your enduring friendship or your enduring interest in sports is solid enough to stand the test of time. Besides meaning long-lasting, enduring sometimes means long-suffering as when someone has an enduring disposition, but this meaning is found in the verb more than in the adjective.
Vocabulary lists containing enduring
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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Beowulf vocabulary
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Franklin Roosevelt, "Four Freedoms" (1941)
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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.
And he called out the enduring appeal of Trader Joe’s tote bags.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 19, 2026
The key enduring question is, “why does this matter so much to me?”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 11, 2026
"It was a series of sliding doors moments that led us to each other and from something so tragic, came an enduring, special friendship."
From BBC ● Sep. 11, 2026
This uncertainty has made the evolutionary role of H. erectus one of the enduring questions in the study of human origins.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 10, 2026
In some vaguely general fashion, they understood this, regarding the construction of the District of Columbia on the Potomac as a statement of Virginia’s enduring influence over the federal government.
From "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis
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.
