Word for "forever"

Latin Learning Latin
1

Hi all.

Anyone know a word for “forever”.

This is what I have:

Solum pedibus tam fortiter percussit ut per terram caderet et evanesceret in perpetuum.

However, I don’t like “in perpetuum”.

Any other ideas?

David

2

You got this from that Latin Rumpelstiltskin, right?

3

I think in aeternum can mean “forever.” But you may have the same objection to that phrase as you do to in perpetuum.

Do you think it sounds too poetic? You can find it in Catullus (“Atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale!”).

David

4

To answer 2 posts at once…

The sentence is from Rumpelstilskin, translated by a person in Holland.

The final text will be made available to you shortly.

For the other post, I think “in perpertuum” does not sound like something everyda latin speaks would have used. It sounds very formal and a bit religious.

Any other ideas?

David

5

Try sempiterne (as adv.) or sempiternus (as adj.).

Chris

6

‘perpetuo’, as well as ‘in perpetuum’ means ‘forever’ and is used in the down-to-earth dialogue of Plautus and Terence’s comedies.

Or you could just reword the phrase; instead of “vanish forever” you could say “never be seen again”. The English expression “vanish forever” seems a tad idiomatic, in that the act of vanishing is not what’s going on forever, but the result – as opposed to something like “The king will rule forever,” in which ‘forever’ is actually giving a timeframe for the action of the verb (rather than its outcome).

I do see some examples of Latin “perire perpetuo” which is more or less the same thing, so maybe I’m worried for nothing. But I have found that, in Latin composition, sometimes I (and thus, by extension, everyone else) get caught in the trap of not realizing how idiomatic and non-literal some common English expressions might be.