Word.ws English Dictionary

ever

Syllables: ev·er/ˈɛvə(ɹ)/

ever adverb: always, frequently, forever.

Adverb

ever (not comparable)

  1. (archaic, formal) Always, frequently, forever.
    • It was ever thus.
    • […] the Lord Treasurer, who ever secretly feigned himself to be a Moderator and Mollifier of the Catholicks Afflictions […]1592, George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax, An Advertisement […] concerning Seminary Priests
    Synonyms:
    forever
  2. Continuously, constantly, all the time (for the complete duration).
    • People struggled to cope with the ever-increasing cost of living.
    • For what seemed ages piled on ages, I lay there, frozen with the most awful fears, not daring to drag away my hand; yet ever thinking that if I could but stir it one single inch, the horrid spell would be broken.1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 4, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 29
  3. At any time.
    • We've only ever talked on the phone.
    • I scarcely ever see you anymore!.
  4. (informal) As intensifier following an interrogative word.
    • Was I ever glad to see you!
    • Did I ever!
  5. (Manglish, Singlish) Indicates experiential aspect, once; has or have (done something) before.
    • but i ever ran 5mins using the 1400 cells and the type RR 23T motor...2005 January 10, hellangel, “Tamiya Asiacup Qualifying 2005 (singapore)”, in rctech.net
    • i ever walked from the south to MacRitchie Reservoir.....2021 July 13, Lchlch, “What are your hobbies in sg?”, in HardwareZone Forums

Adjective

ever (not comparable)

  1. Occurring at any time, occurring even but once during a timespan.
    • This family empathy measure is highly related to ever use of birth control but not to any measure of continuous use.1965, Reuben Hill, The family and population control: a Puerto Rican experiment in social change

Determiner

ever

  1. (dialectal, informal) Shortening of every
    • "Ever place you look there's houses and more houses."1989, Connie Jordan Green, The War at Home, page 16
    • Queen Anne's lace ever place you look.2011, Lee Smith, Oral History, →ISBN

ever meaning in Malayalam, Kannada, Gujarati and Odia

ever in Malayalam

എന്നെങ്കിലും

ever in Kannada

ಎಂದೆಂದಿಗೂ, ಎಂದಾದರೂ, ಯಾವತ್ತಿಗೂ

ever in Gujarati

ક્યારેય

ever in Odia

କେବେ
More languagesFewer languages
ever in Arabic
يَوْمًا yawman
ever in Persian
همیشه hamiše
ever in Vietnamese
bao giờ

Examples of ever in a sentence

  • If that ever happens, we’re in deep trouble.
  • This is one of the best movies ever.
  • He's back and better than ever.
  • I’ll stop your ever doing that again.
  • Let us ever remember that our conception, our comprehension, our feeling of God must be ever imperfect, yet should be ever advancing.1860, Florence Nightingale, Suggestions for Thought to the searchers after truth among the artizans of England., page 302:
  • The library staffs of the Karaton Surakarta's Sasana Pustaka, the Mangku- nagaran's Reksa Pustaka, and the Museum Radyapustaka were ever helpful and generous with their time.1993, Nancy K. Florida, Javanese Literature in Surakarta Manuscripts: Introduction and manuscripts of the Karaton Surakarta, SEAP...

All 40 example sentences with ever

Synonyms of ever

Antonyms

Forms of ever

alternative poetice'er
alternative poeticev'r
alternative form (obsolete)euer
alternative form (dialectal)eva
alternative form (dialectal)evah
alternative form (dialectal)eva'
alternative form (dialectal)evuh
alternative form (dialectal)iver
alternative form (dialectal)ivver

Origin of ever

From Middle English ever, from Old English ǣfre, originally a phrase whose first element undoubtedly consists of Old English ā (“ever, always”) + in (“in”) + an element possibly from feorh (“life, existence”) (dative fēore). Compare Old English ā tō fēore (“ever in life”), Old English feorhlīf (“life”) from feorh (“life”) + līf (“life”). Sense 5 of the adverb was likely formed by association with never, which also carries the meaning of did not in colloquial Singaporean and Malaysian English. Also, compare Chinese 有 … 過 /有 … 过 (yǒu ... guò / jau⁵ ... gwo³, “has […] before”).

Words formed from ever

Phrases with ever

23 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with ever

17 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about ever

What does ever mean?
Ever means always, frequently, forever.
What is ever in Malayalam?
Ever in Malayalam is എന്നെങ്കിലും. See Ever meaning in Malayalam.
How do you use ever in a sentence?
If that ever happens, we’re in deep trouble.
What part of speech is ever?
Ever can be an adverb, an adjective or a determiner.
How do you pronounce ever?
Ever is pronounced /ˈɛvə(ɹ)/.

Words near ever in the dictionary

  1. evenward
  2. evenweave
  3. evenweaves
  4. Evenwood
  5. Evenwood and Barony
  6. ever
  7. ever after
  8. ever and again
  9. ever and anon
  10. ever and ever
  11. ever since

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ever (page history and authors); ever (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); ever (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); ever (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); ever (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-uk-ever.ogg, en-us-ever.ogg.

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