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lasting

USLAS-ting/ˈlæstɪŋ/UKLAH-sting/ˈlɑːstɪŋ/

6 meanings of lasting

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  1. 1
    adjective
    Continuing or remaining in effect for an extended period of time.

    The treaty brought a lasting peace to the divided region.

    Childhood experiences can have a lasting effect on personality.

    Similardurable, abiding

    Oppositetemporary, fleeting, brief, transient

    Note

    The surviving sense, and the one that takes comparison: a peace can be lasting, more lasting, the most lasting. It sits before its noun in steady pairings: a lasting peace, a lasting impression, Spenser's lasting infamy in The Faerie Queene. Long is the point, not endless. Susanna Centlivre's Love at a Venture (1706) calls marriage a lasting thing, set against a mere six months. Endlessness belonged to the obsolete "forever" sense.

  2. 2
    verb
    Present participle and gerund of last.

    Supplies are lasting longer thanks to careful rationing.

    The peace talks are lasting into a second week.

    Note

    The -ing form serves every verb last, not only the one for enduring. Supplies are lasting, a weary side is lasting until the end, and a shoemaker is lasting an upper onto its form, the verb behind the shoemaking noun. After be it is a verb. Before a noun and gradable, as in more lasting, it has become the adjective for long-lived things.

  3. 3
    noununcountable
    The act or process of shaping footwear over a last, the foot-shaped form used in shoemaking.

    Lasting pulls the upper tightly over the form before the sole is attached.

    Hand lasting requires skill to avoid wrinkles in the leather.

    Note

    Despite the spelling, nothing here concerns endurance. The word comes from the shoemaker's last, the form itself, through the verb meaning to fit or fasten an upper to it. It names a stage of the work, as in hand lasting, and it is countable as well as uncountable. Uppers made of the old lasting cloth went through lasting too.

  4. 4
    nounhistoricaluncountable
    A durable, plain-woven fabric formerly used for making clothes and for the uppers of women's shoes.

    The cobbler preferred lasting for shoe uppers because it held its shape.

    Tailors of the period worked lasting into hard-wearing waistcoats.

    Note

    A historical textile whose names advertise its strength. It was called lasting cloth in full and also everlasting, both fitting a fabric valued for wearing well. As a noun it is countable or not: lasting as a material, lastings as kinds or pieces of it. In shoe history it is easy to confuse with the shoemaking process, which shares both the spelling and the shoe.

Less common meanings

  1. 5
    adjectiveobsolete
    Persisting forever, with no end at all; everlasting.
    Things that are first must give place, but things that are last, are lasting.
    1678, John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World
    I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan, Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death, And from the organ-pipe of frailty sings His soul and body to their lasting rest.
    c. 1596, William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”

    Similarpermanent, eternal, everlasting, endless, perpetual

    Note

    Older texts sometimes mean more than long by lasting: they mean without end. Shakespeare's King John sends soul and body to their lasting rest, the rest that follows death. Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress (1678) puns that things that are last are lasting. Read such passages as everlasting. Today the word has only its long-but-finite meaning, so do not use it for eternity.

  2. 6
    nounobsoleteuncountable
    The action or state of persisting, or the length of time during which something or someone continues.

    Similarduration, continuance, endurance

    Note

    A noun that once did the work duration and continuance do now. Donne paired it with continuance in 1651, and Locke wrote of the "several degrees of lasting" with which ideas are imprinted on the memory. The noun has since dropped out of use. For a span of time, choose duration or endurance, and keep lasting for the everyday adjective, as in a lasting impression.

lasting is a form of last

last, verb: To continue to exist, work or hold out over a period of time without ending, wearing out or being defeated. Full entry

Forms
lastlasts he/she/itlasting -ing formlasted past tense, past participle
Spelling
last → lasting: add -ing

Practice

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