Word of the Day

: September 28, 2010

eternize

verb ih-TER-nyze

What It Means

1 a : to make eternal

b : to prolong indefinitely

2 : immortalize

eternize in Context

The poet with her pen eternizes what is fleeting in the world.

"Today, almost a century after her death, Ida Saxton McKinley has been eternized as a representative of all American first ladies at her Canton home." -- From an article by Michael Schuman in the Chicago Tribune, April 25, 2004

Did You Know?

"Eternize" shows up in the works of literary greats, such as John Milton, Edmund Spenser, and Herman Melville, and it sees occasional use in modern-day sources, but it is far from common. The same can be said of its slightly longer and related synonym "eternalize." "Eternize" is the older of the two; our earliest evidence of the word dates to 1566, while evidence of "eternalize" dates to 1620. But there's a third relative that predates them both, and it's far more common than either of them. That would be "eternal," which has been with us since the 14th century. All three words are ultimately rooted in Latin "aevum," meaning "age" or "eternity."

Quick Quiz: What 10-letter word beginning with a "p" is a synonym of "eternize"? The answer is ...