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WordWealth: perennial
per·en·ni·al
 ,
adj.
1. lasting for an
indefinitely long time; enduring: her perennial beauty. 2.
(of plants) having a life cycle lasting more than two years.
3. lasting or continuing throughout the entire year, as a
stream. 4. perpetual; everlasting; continuing; recurrent.
– n.
5. a perennial
plant: Daffodils and tulips are perennials. 6.
something that is continuing or recurrent.
[1635–45; < L perenni(s)
lasting the whole year through (per-
PER- +
-enn-, comb. form of annus year + -is adj.
suffix) + -AL1]
—per·en  ni·al i·ty,
n.
—per·en ni·al·ly,
adv.
—Syn. 1.
perdurable; constant, incessant, continual. 4. imperishable,
undying, eternal, immortal. (Random
House Webster's Unabridged).
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When I was last in Bali two years ago, there was a little Javanese man
who used to herald my grinding hangover each morning with a toasted
cheese sandwich. He was the hotel's most junior porter and was lithe,
moustached and blessed with a perennial grin. He also went by
the strangely un-Balinese name of Reg. ——
Jonathan Horn, 'Sari
Club Bad, Bad Place. Bad with God';
Telegraph, Oct 20, 2002
Now, of course, we are kinder. We prefer “art
therapy”, and some ten million of us worldwide are popping Prozac. It
is on such issues that this book is penetrating and profound: “. . .
psycho-active drugs have substantially reduced the numbers of those
institutionalised. But problems of side-effects and dependency are
perennial, and their long-term effects are necessarily unknown.”
——
Roy Porter, 'Mind
Reading'; Times; March 1, 2003
Rather later, it proved necessary to appoint people to the British
Cabinet without departmental responsibilities, who instead had a
roving or variable assignment, or brought useful skills or experience
to bear. They were dubbed ministers without portfolio, which
has led to a perennial parliamentary joke about such persons
being spotted carrying a portfolio (one recent minister without
portfolio is even said to have had “minister without portfolio”
written on his portfolio). ——
Michael Quinion, 'Topical
Word, Portfolio'; Michael writes about International
English from a British viewpoint
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