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''interminable'' ▫ᴱᴺ|Definition|1st|20260605211710-00-⌔

interminable - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Adjective

interminable (comparative more interminable, superlative most interminable)

  • Existing or occurring without interruption or end; ceaseless, unending.
    • After supper Sir Pitt Crawley began to smoke his pipe; and when it became quite dark, he lighted the rushlight in the tin candlestick, and producing from an interminable pocket a huge mass of papers, began reading them, and putting them in order.1
    • The sea-reach of the Thames stretched before us like the beginning of an interminable waterway.2
    • It was now a beautiful, moonlit night. The air was crisp and invigorating. Behind them lay the interminable vista of the desert, dotted here and there with an occasional oasis.3
    • Life’s interminable succession of stages.4

Noun

interminable (plural interminables)

  • (mathematics, dated) A repeating decimal.

Etymology

From Middle English interminable, from Middle French interminable and its etymon Late Latin interminābilis.56 By surface analysis, in- +‎ terminable.

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA: /ɪnˈtɜː(ɹ).mɪn.ə.bəl/
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

  1. 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, “Crawley of Queen’s Crawley”, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC, page 61:

  2. 1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 193:

  3. 1913 June–December, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “Through the Valley of the Shadow”, in The Return of Tarzan, New York, N.Y.: A[lbert] L[evi] Burt Company, […], published March 1915, →OCLC, page 137:

  4. 1983 February 5, Joseph Van Ness, “Keeping It Alive”, in Gay Community News, volume 10, number 28, page 10:

  5. “interminable, adj.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.

  6. “intermināble, adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

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