Definitions

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

  • adjective Continuing without interruption. synonym: continual.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Continued or repeated without interruption or intermission; unceasing; ceaseless: as, incessant rains; incessant clamor.
  • Synonyms Continuous, Incessant, Continual, Perpetual; unremitting, unremitted. Continuous means unbroken, and is passive; incessant means unceasing, and is active. The former is preferable to note duration, condition, or result; the latter, to describe the exertion by which the condition or result is produced. We speak of a continuous or an incessant fever, according as we think of the fever as a state or as an activity; and similarly of a continuous or incessant strain of music, and the continuous or incessant murmur of a brook; but only of a continuous railroad-track or telegraph-wire. Continual regularly implies the habitual or repeated renewals of an act, state, etc.: as, a continual succession of storms. In the Bible continual is sometimes used for continuous, but the distinction here indicated is now clearly established. Perpetual is continuous with the idea of lastingness: as, perpetual motion. It is often used in the sense of continual: as, I am sick of such perpetual bickerings. In either sense, unless the thing is really everlasting, it is used by hyperbole, as implying that one sees no end to the matter. See eternal.

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

  • adjective Continuing or following without interruption; unceasing; unintermitted; uninterrupted; continual

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

  • adjective Without pause or stop; not ending, especially to the point of annoyance.

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

  • adjective uninterrupted in time and indefinitely long continuing

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English incessaunte, from Late Latin incessāns, incessant- : Latin in-, not; see in– + Latin cessāns, present participle of cessāre, to stop; see cease.]

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word incessant.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.