immortal

immortal, deathless, undying, unfading mean not subject to death or decay and, hence, everlasting. With the exception of immortal, all of these words are chiefly in poetic use and are distinguishable especially in their connotations and applications.

Basically immortal implies little more than exemption from liability to death and is usually applied to the soul or spirit of man

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such harmony is in immortal souls; but whilst this muddy vesture of decay doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it— Shak.

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Sometimes immortal equals eternal

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the first to express the belief that the soul was divine and immortal in duration— Helsel

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but more frequently it keeps close to the basic sense in being applied to something comparable to the soul in that it lives on in fullness of vigor after its maker or possessor has died

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the immortal epics of Homer

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'tis verse that gives immortal youth to mortal maids— Landor

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Oh may I join the choir invisible of those immortal dead who live again in minds made better by their presence— George Eliot

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the single immortal act of John Wilkes Booth in snuffing out the life of a beloved president— Miers

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Deathless also implies incapacity for death; it is seldom applied to the soul but rather to immaterial things that tran-scend the limitations of mortal existence

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art's deathless dreams— Shelley

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virtue crowned with glory's deathless meed— Wordsworth

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Undying is applied chiefly to emotions or passions marked by such intensity or vitality as to be or to seem incapable of extinction while life lasts

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undying love

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undying hatred

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a patriot's heart, warm with undying fire— Wordsworth

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Lawrence's undying conviction of the necessity for . . . harmonization— Millett

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Unfading often comes close to undying in meaning but connotes persistence of brightness or bloom rather than of intensity

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unfading recollections

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true charity . . . thrives against hope, and in the rudest scene, storms but enliven its unfading green— Co wper

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Analogous words: *everlasting, endless

Antonyms: mortal

Contrasted words: transitory, fleeting, fugitive, ephemeral, evanescent, transient