Learn English – word for “timeless” that doesn’t imply the passage of time

expressionssingle-word-requeststime

I know this is really weird, but I think I'm essentially trying to describe Death as an entity that is to a temporal stream of events what a painting is to a film; both are complete entities, but are fundamentally different in how they deal with time. The painting is temporally static, whereas the film has a changeable moment – like life, it has a "present", past and future.

If I try to write about death in this way, is there a word to express that?

Infinite, unchanging, eternal and constant don't quite seem to work because they imply a passage of time around the subject. I'd considered "timeless", but I'm not entirely sure about it because I feel like it has too many connotations of "classic", or again, that it simply implies something unaffected by time rather than something alien to it.

I realise this is a bit of a longshot, but does anyone have any ideas? If there isn't a word for it, I'd even be up for suggestions for a new word, so long as it's meaning is recognisable.

Best Answer

The word atemporal means

independent of or unaffected by time.

(Merriam-Webster's definition)