Ev"er (?) adv. [OE. ever, æfre, AS. æfre; perh. akin to AS.
ā always. Cf. Aye, Age,Evry,
Never.]
[Sometimes contracted into e'er.] 1. At any time; at any period or
point of time.
No man ever yet hated his own flesh.
Eph. v. 29. 2. At all times; through all time; always; forever.
He shall ever love, and always be
The subject of by
scorn and cruelty.
Dryder.
3. Without cessation; continually.
&fist; Ever is sometimes used as an intensive or a word of enforcement. "His the old man
e'er a son?" Shak.
To produce as
much as ever they can.
M.
Arnold. Ever and
anon, now and then; often. See under Anon. -- Ever is one, continually; constantly. [Obs.] Chaucer. -- Ever so, in whatever degree; to whatever extent; -- used to intensify indefinitely the meaning of the associated adjective or adverb. See Never so, under Never. "Let him be ever so rich." Emerson.
And all the question (wrangle e'er so long),
Is only this, if
God has placed him wrong.
Pope. You spend ever so much money in entertaining your equals
and betters.
Thackeray. --
For ever, eternally. See Forever. -- For ever and a day, emphatically
forever. Shak.
She [Fortune] soon wheeled away, with scornful laughter, out of sight
for ever and day.
Prof.
Wilson. -- Or ever (for or ere), before. See Or, ere. [Archaic]
Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven
Or ever I had
seen that day, Horatio!
Shak. &fist; Ever is sometimes joined to its adjective by a hyphen, but
in most cases the hyphen is
needless; as, ever memorable, ever watchful, ever burning.
Hear it pronounced