Definitions

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

  • transitive verb To cause to continue indefinitely; make perpetual.
  • transitive verb To prolong the existence of; cause to be remembered.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To make perpetual; cause to endure or to continue or be continued indefinitely; preserve from failure, extinction, or oblivion: as, to perpetuate the remembrance of a great event or of an illustrious character.
  • Made perpetual; continued through the ages, or for an indefinite time; recurring continuously; continually repeated or reiterated.

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

  • transitive verb To make perpetual; to cause to endure, or to be continued, indefinitely; to preserve from extinction or oblivion; to eternize.
  • adjective rare Made perpetual; perpetuated.

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

  • verb transitive To make perpetual.
  • verb transitive To prolong the existence of.

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

  • verb cause to continue or prevail

Etymologies

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

[Latin perpetuāre, perpetuāt-, from perpetuus, continuous; see perpetual.]

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