Word of the Day

: February 15, 2021

durable

adjective DUR-uh-bul

What It Means

: able to exist for a long time without significant deterioration; also : designed to be durable

durable in Context

The couch is covered in an eye-catching yet durable fabric that will last for years.

"And yet books about United States presidents—biographies, autobiographies, tell-alls … —have been among the most durable literary genres since the presidency of George Washington." — Christopher Borrelli, The Chicago Tribune, 12 Nov. 2020

Did You Know?

Something durable lasts a long time, so it's no surprise that the word comes to us, via Anglo-French, from the Latin verb durare, meaning "to last." Other descendants of durare in English include during, endure, and durance (which now mostly turns up in the phrase "in durance vile," a fancy way of saying "in prison"). Durable even has a near synonym in the much rarer perdurable, which combines durare with the prefix per- (meaning "throughout") to create a word that can mean "lasting a very long time or indefinitely" or "eternal."