Word.ws English Dictionary

eternal now

eternal now noun: the condition in which all reality is experienced in the present, with the past contained only in memory and the future only in anticipation or speculation.

Noun

eternal now (uncountable)

  1. The condition in which all reality is experienced in the present, with the past contained only in memory and the future only in anticipation or speculation.
    • For the bliss of the animals lies in this, that, on their lower level, they shadow the bliss of those—few at any moment on the earth—who do not "look before and after, and pine for what is not," but live in the holy carelessness of the eternal now.1879, George MacDonald, chapter 2, in Sir Gibbie
    • We never go beyond the present. […] Tomorrow never comes. Our existence is enclosed within the divine moment, the eternal now.1884, Warren Felt Evans, The Divine Law of Cure, page 107
  2. The nature of the existence of God which is outside of time; the nature of the existence of a soul in a supposed timeless afterlife.
    • [Heidegger] is trying to avoid any conception of time that begins with a distinction between time and eternity. On this understanding of time, classically expressed in Augustine's Confessions, temporality is derived from a higher non-temporal state of eternity, which is co-extensive with the...2009 July 27, Simon Critchley, “Heidegger's Being and Time, part 8: Temporality”, in Guardian (UK), retrieved 02 Jan 2019

eternal now meaning in Tamil

eternal now in Tamil

பொழுதிலா

Examples of eternal now in a sentence

  • Our children, of course. […] Unless they can be won to history, their imagination will be held hostage in the cage of eternal Now: the flickering instant that's gone as soon as it has arrived.2010 November 9, Simon Schama, “My vision for history in schools”, in Guardian (UK), retrieved 02 Jan 2019:
  • Trump: “He lives in the eternal now—no history, no consequences.”2018 October 18, Maggie Haberman, “A President Who Believes He Is Entitled to His Own Facts”, in New York Times (USA), retrieved 02 Jan...

Synonyms of eternal now

Forms of eternal now

alternative formEternal Now

Questions about eternal now

What does eternal now mean?
Eternal now means the condition in which all reality is experienced in the present, with the past contained only in memory and the future only in anticipation or speculation.
What is eternal now in Tamil?
Eternal now in Tamil is பொழுதிலா. See Eternal now meaning in Tamil.
How do you use eternal now in a sentence?
Our children, of course. […] Unless they can be won to history, their imagination will be held hostage in the cage of eternal Now: the flickering instant that's gone as soon as it has arrived.
What part of speech is eternal now?
Eternal now is a noun.

Words near eternal now in the dictionary

  1. Eternal City
  2. eternal flower
  3. eternal life
  4. eternal marriage
  5. eternal marriages
  6. eternal now
  7. eternal recurrence
  8. eternal rest
  9. eternal return
  10. Eternal September
  11. eternal sin

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: eternal now (page history and authors); eternal now (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “eternal now.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/eternal_now. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.