Word.ws English Dictionary

set in stone

set in stone adjective: permanent; certain; firm.

Adjective

set in stone

  1. (idiomatic) Permanent; certain; firm.
    • The decision won't be set in stone until we release the documents.
    • So what is it that makes SBB (Swiss national railways) tick? In my humble opinion, two things. Firstly, a comprehensive and set-in-stone integrated timetable (incorporating trains, ferries, cable cars and buses, including the world-famous yellow 'post-autos'), compiled four years in advance and...2025 October 15, Vitali Vitaliev, “The recipe for Swiss bliss”, in RAIL, number 1046, page 68

Verb

set in stone (third-person singular simple present sets in stone, present participle setting in stone, simple past and past participle set in stone)

  1. (idiomatic, transitive) To render something permanent, certain, or firm.
    • The plan looks good, but don't set it in stone until we have discussed it a bit more.

set in stone meaning in Urdu and Bengali

set in stone in Urdu

permanent
پتھر میں لکیر ... patthar mē̃ lakīr ...

set in stone in Bengali

স্থায়ী, নিশ্চিত, অপরিবর্তনীয়, কোনো কিছুকে স্থায়ী, অপরিবর্তনীয় করা

Synonyms of set in stone

Forms of set in stone

third-person singular presentsets in stone
present participlesetting in stone
past participleset in stone
pastset in stone

Questions about set in stone

What does set in stone mean?
Set in stone means permanent; certain; firm.
What is set in stone in Urdu?
Set in stone in Urdu is پتھر میں لکیر ... (patthar mē̃ lakīr ...). See Set in stone meaning in Urdu.
What part of speech is set in stone?
Set in stone can be an adjective or a verb.

Words near set in stone in the dictionary

  1. set function
  2. set functions
  3. set in
  4. set in motion
  5. set in one's ways
  6. set in stone
  7. set in train
  8. set light
  9. set list
  10. set lists
  11. set loose

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: set in stone (page history and authors); set in stone (Bengali 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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-set in stone.ogg.

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