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Glite Dictionary
life eternal

life eternal

1 7.9
An endless state of being after death
  • noun
  • Literature
translation icon : vida eterna
  • And this is life eternal, that they might know You (Father) THE ONLY TRUE GOD, and Yeshuah Hamashiach, whom you have sent.

Examples

  • There was no mention of death or damnation in the psalms led by Father Federico, only the promise of life eternal and heavenly bliss.

    Fiction book (1994)

  • Believers around the world seek comfort in the promise of life eternal after death.

  • How else does one find life eternal?

    Byzantium (2013)

  • And this is life eternal...

    Blog text (2)

  • Creative power is life eternal and not life corruptible.

    Academic text (1991)

  • Like I told my son, who claims to be an atheist, "I believe in life eternal and will spend that forever with Christ Jesus."

    Blog text (32)

  • Romans reaches inside the individual and teaches communion with the Holy Spirit, the "gift" and guarantee of life eternal.

    Blog text (28)

  • According to the Alexandrian Physiologus, the phoenix betokens life eternal.

    Fiction book (1991)

  • "This life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent" (John 17:3).

    Blog text (27)

  • 4:36 He that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal; that he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together.

    Blog text (4)

Synonyms

immortality
vslife eternal
73 7.2

A life that never ends

stresses eternal continuing existence rather than surviving death only
eternal life
vslife eternal
46 7.4

Life that continues forever after death

has identical meaning but uses a specific two word traditional phrasing
perpetuity
vslife eternal
19 9.6

A situation that lasts forever

is about ongoing existence in a religious or philosophical sense
timelessness
vslife eternal
  • Literature
1 7.5

A state of not being limited by time, for example in the afterlife

emphasizes unending existence within religious belief rather than abstract absence of time
everlastingness
vslife eternal
9.9

A state of lasting forever

focuses on continuing existence specifically rather than the abstract quality
eternality
vslife eternal
8.4

Lasting forever without a beginning or end

highlights continuing existence itself rather than the general quality
foreverness
vslife eternal
8.3

A state of seeming to last or really lasting without an end

is a genuine unending existence rather than an appearance of duration
deathlessness
vslife eternal
  • Literature
9.6

A state of never dying or being remembered forever

limits itself to endless existence more broadly, not just survival or memory

Surface Forms

life eternal singular
life eternals plural

Morphology

life + eternal

The meaning is directly and compositionally derivable from 'life' (existence) + 'eternal' (without end): it denotes life that lasts forever. Although the word order 'life eternal' is somewhat poetic or archaic compared with the more common 'eternal life', the semantic relation is transparent and cross-linguistically obvious to learners who know both constituents.

Etymology

Life eternal may come from old religious books that promised a life after death that never ends. The image is of a life that is eternal (never ending), so the phrase came to mean 'life without beginning or end'.