Origin: Latin suffix -al
Immortal has 5 different meanings across 2 categories:
One who is not susceptible to death.
"The legend claims that Zoroaster was immortal and thus never succumbed to death despite centuries of persecution."
In plain English: An immortal is someone who never dies and lives forever.
"The legend tells of an immortal who drinks nectar from golden cups to live forever."
not subject to death
"The mythological gods were considered immortal because they could never be killed."
Not susceptible to death; living forever; never dying.
"The legend claims that after drinking the magical nectar, the king became immortal and would live forever without ever dying again."
In plain English: Immortal means something that never dies and will live forever.
"The story was immortalized in song for generations to come."
Usage: Use immortal as an adjective before a noun or after the verb "to be," but avoid using it predicatively with verbs like "become" unless referring to achieving legendary status rather than literal biological immortality. In casual speech, prefer synonyms like "undead" for fictional characters or "ageless" for those who defy aging, reserving immortal for mythological beings or abstract concepts of fame.
The word comes from Latin immortālis, formed by adding "not" to mortal to mean someone who does not die, eventually replacing an older Old English term for the undead. Its specific sense of referring to Persian soldiers was borrowed as a translation of the Ancient Greek phrase for those same warriors.