Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The quality or condition of being permanent; permanency.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The character or property of being permanent or enduring; durability; fixedness; continuance in the same state, condition, place, or office; the state of being lasting, fixed, unchanging or unchangeable in character, condition, position, office, or the like; freedom from liability to change; as, the permanence of a government or state; the permanence of liberal institutions.
  • noun Synonyms See lasting.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The quality or state of being permanent; continuance in the same state or place; duration; fixedness

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The state of being permanent.
  • noun physics The reciprocal of magnetic inductance.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the property of being able to exist for an indefinite duration

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Medieval Latin permanentia, from Latin permaneo ("I remain; last").

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Examples

  • Object permanence is the concept that when we do not perceive an object, it continues to exist.

    Afterlife and object permanence Richard Nokes 2005

  • I don't really believe that the word permanence exists in Juria's vocabulary :P.

    Memespelunk - Second Life through Juria Yoshikawa's eyes - Expect the unexpected Bettina Tizzy 2007

  • Considering that Damascus saw twenty-one changes of government in the twenty-four years preceding his coup, Assad's permanence is impressive.

    Syria: Identity Crisis 1993

  • Considering that Damascus saw twenty-one changes of government in the twenty-four years preceding his coup, Assad's permanence is impressive.

    Syria: Identity Crisis 1993

  • That elements of permanence is what the transient democratic politician needs, and that the bureaucrat can give him.

    The Politician and the Bureaucrat 1977

  • When five winters had passed over Susan's head, there came a time of great domestic commotion, and, in her small way, the child seized the idea that permanence is not the rule of life.

    Eighty Years and More: Reminiscences 1815-1897 1898

  • Romance is a luxury of the living and you were several staircases down on your way to death, and we who have made a start behind you, gathering and spending, turning the rare pages with delight, shelving and reshelving the accumulated wisdom of the world, adherents to the faith in permanence, sniff the Alexandrian smoke and turn over in our first-class berths and steerage bunds or play another hand of poker as the lights flicker and at last go out.

    2008 November 25 | NIGEL BEALE NOTA BENE BOOKS 2008

  • Romance is a luxury of the living and you were several staircases down on your way to death, and we who have made a start behind you, gathering and spending, turning the rare pages with delight, shelving and reshelving the accumulated wisdom of the world, adherents to the faith in permanence, sniff the Alexandrian smoke and turn over in our first-class berths and steerage bunds or play another hand of poker as the lights flicker and at last go out.

    The Book Collector by Tim Bowling 2008

  • Romance is a luxury of the living and you were several staircases down on your way to death, and we who have made a start behind you, gathering and spending, turning the rare pages with delight, shelving and reshelving the accumulated wisdom of the world, adherents to the faith in permanence, sniff the Alexandrian smoke and turn over in our first-class berths and steerage bunds or play another hand of poker as the lights flicker and at last go out.

    2008 November | NIGEL BEALE NOTA BENE BOOKS 2008

  • I’m not sure I would group monuments with speeches or pamphlets, as the issue of permanence is a major distinction.

    Waldo Jaquith - The Supreme Court is taking a religion case. 2008

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