eon
nounCA, US /ˈi.ɑn/ · UK /ˈiː.ɔn/
Etymology From Latin aeon, from Ancient Greek αἰών (aiṓn, “age, era”).
1
Eternity, the duration of the universe.
2
An immeasurably or indefinitely long period of time.
- It’s been eons since we last saw each other.
- Traditionally, a luncheon is a lunch that takes an eon.1990, Judith Martin, Miss Manners’ Guide for the Turn-of-the-Millennium (A Fireside Book), New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 453:
4
Astronomy, Geography, Geology, Natural sciences A period of one billion (short scale, i.e. 1,000,000,000) years; a gigayear.
- We live our lives in three dimensions for our threescore and ten allotted years. Yet every branch of contemporary science, from statistics to cosmology, alludes to processes that operate on scales outside of human experience: the millisecond and the nanometer, the eon and the light-year.2012 January 23, Robert L. Dorit, “Rereading Darwin”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 1, archived from the original on 14 Nov 2012, page 23:
6
Gnosticism, Lifestyle, Religion A spirit being emanating from the Godhead.
- Synonyms
- Antonyms
- jiffy, moment, never in a month of Sundays
- Related terms
- time immemorial, time out of mind, until one is blue in the face, until the cows come home, yottasecond
- Hypernyms
- period, uncertain period
- Hyponyms
- Archean eon, Hadean eon, Phanerozoic eon, Proterozoic eon, supereon, temporal æon