a. arch. [f. EVER adv. + DURING ppl. a.] Always enduring, everlasting.
1382. Wyclif, Isa. xxiv. 5. For thei … scatereden the euere durende [1383 euerlastynge] bond.
1480. Robt. Devyll, 1133. The paynes of hell, that ys euer durynge.
1541. Coverdale, trans. Bullinger’s Old Faith (1581), xi. 137. This onely true and euer during saluation.
1667. Milton, P. L., VII. 206. Heav’n op’nd wide Her everduring Gates.
1725–6. Pope, Odyss., VII. 306. Let instant death surprize With ever-during shade these happy eyes!
1784. Cowper, Task, V. 710. Sculpture … Gives bond in stone and ever-during brass.
1847. Macaulay, Misc. Poems (1860), 432. The ever-during plant whose bough I wear.
1854. J. S. C. Abbott, Napoleon (1855), II. xxiv. 391. That civil code … will remain an ever-during monument of his labors and his genius.
Hence Ever-duringness.
1867. Bushnell, Mor. Use Dark Th., 327. The sense of our ever-duringness comes through no speculation about the matter of dateless continuance.
