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forever

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forever and a day

1. Eternally; always; ceaselessly. Honey, I'll love you forever and a day!

2. An exceptionally long period of time. Jim, how you been? It's been forever and a day since I last saw you!

See also: and, forever

a thing of beauty is a joy forever

Something beautiful will give pleasure long after it ceases to exist. This phrase is taken from John Keats' poem Endymion. Thoughts of blooming flowers sustain me through the cold winter months. Truly, a thing of beauty is a joy forever.

See also: beauty, forever, joy, of, thing

forever and ever

 and forever and a day

forever. I will love you forever and ever. This car won't keep running forever and ever. We'll have to get a new one sometime upcoming. We have enough money to last forever and a day.

See also: and, ever, forever

lost and gone forever

lost; permanently lost. My poor doggy is lost and gone forever. My money fell out of my pocket and I am sure that it is lost and gone forever.

See also: and, forever, gone, lost

A thing of beauty is a joy forever.

Prov. Beautiful things give pleasure that lasts even longer than the beautiful things themselves. (This is a line from John Keats's poem "Endymion." Also a thing of beauty and a joy forever, used to describe something beautiful in lofty terms, often ironically.) Jill: I don't understand why someone would pay millions of dollars to have some old painting. Jane: Because a thing of beauty is a joy forever.

See also: beauty, forever, joy, of, thing

take forever

to happen very slowly I have an old microwave, the kind that takes forever to boil a cup of water. In rush-hour traffic, it takes forever to get home.

See also: forever, take

forever and a day

1. For a very long time, as in He's been working on that book forever and a day. This hyperbolic expression probably originated as a corruption of the now obsolete for ever and ay. Shakespeare used it in The Taming of the Shrew (4:4): "Farewell for ever and a day." Today it is mainly a substitute for "very long time." [c. 1600]

2. Incessantly, ceaselessly, as in Will this racket never end? It's been going on forever and a day. [Colloquial; first half of 1900s]

See also: and, forever