Word of the Day

: March 31, 2009

perennial

adjective puh-REN-ee-ul

What It Means

1 : present at all seasons of the year

2 : continuing to live from year to year

3 : recurring regularly : permanent

perennial in Context

The diva's late-night partying and angry run-ins with the paparazzi have been perennial fodder for the tabloids.

Did You Know?

Nowadays when we talk about "perennial plants," or simply "perennials" ("perennial" can be a noun, too), we mean plants that die back seasonally but produce new growth in the spring. But originally "perennial" was equivalent to "evergreen," used for plants that remain with us all year. We took this "throughout the year" sense straight from the Romans, whose Latin "perennis" combined "per-" ("throughout") with a form of "annus" ("year"). The poet Ovid, writing around the beginning of the first millennium, used the Latin word to refer to a "perennial spring" (water source), and the scholar Pliny used it of birds that don't migrate. Our "perennial" retains these same uses, for streams and occasionally for birds, but it has long had extended meanings, too.