English

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Etymology

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From incessant +‎ -ly.

Pronunciation

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Adverb

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incessantly (not comparable)

  1. In a manner without pause or stop, especially to the point of annoyance; not ceasing.
    Synonyms: ceaselessly, continuously, unremittingly; see also Thesaurus:continuously
    He jabbered incessantly and annoyed everyone.
    • 1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “The Confession”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. [], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, [], →OCLC, page 136:
      We see the eye subdued, the practised smile, / The word well weighed before it pass the lip, / And know not of the misery within: / Yet there it works incessantly, and fears / The time to come; for time is terrible, / Avenging, and betraying.
    • 1865, Henry D[avid] Thoreau, “The Shipwreck”, in [Sophia Thoreau; William Ellery Channing], editors, Cape Cod, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC, page 14:
      There were the tawny rocks, like lions couchant, defying the ocean, whose waves incessantly dashed against and scoured them with vast quantities of gravel.
    • 1865 November (indicated as 1866), Lewis Carroll [pseudonym; Charles Lutwidge Dodgson], “Advice from a Caterpillar”, in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, London: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC, page 63:
      "You are old, Father William," the young man said, / "And your hair has become very white; / And yet you incessantly stand on your head— / Do you think, at your age, it is right?"
    • 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 59:
      But just there a small hairy terrier exploded out at the gate, like a floor-mop impelled by some sort of internal combustion, which sent him off into a frenzy of yapping, incessantly jerked backwards by the explosive force of his own detonations.
  2. (obsolete) Immediately.
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