Without Cease

Without Cease Without Cease Without Cease By Maeve Maddox One of my illustrations in a recent post, The wind has blown without cease for three days. struck some readers as odd. This from Brad K. I would have used â€Å"ceasing† for the wind, an action verb that conveys more of a sense of continuing over time. If Id been writing a descriptive passage, I might have gone with ceasing and not cease. As it was, I was simply reaching for a sentence and the idiom without cease is what sprang to mind. According to the OED, cease used as a noun is obsolete, except in the still occasional without cease, without end, incessantly. (Cf. F. sans cesse.) Dictionary.com gives this for cease as a noun: n.  Ã‚  Cessation; pause: We worked without cease to get the project finished on time. From Merriam-Webster: CESSATION usually used with without I kept an eye upon her without cease R.L.Stevenson> Ill have to concede that the expression without cease is a little old-fashioned, but then my diction tends to be so. Here are some fairly current examples of the idiom that I found with a little web browsing: Poverty†, the Pope said, â€Å"is a plague against which humanity must fight without cease†¦ (2005) ï ¿ ¼Most of the early civilisations had similar stories: images from China three millennia ago tell of a land under the wheeling stars, beyond endless untravelled wastes, where gales blew without cease, and furry creatures, half animal and half human devoured one another. p. xix of the Foreword to The Arctic:Environment, People, Policy (2000) Ed. by Terry V. Callaghan Book title: Without Cease The Earth Faintly Trembles By Amanda Marchand (2003) Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Expressions category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Grammar Test 1Difference between "Pressing" and "Ironing"20 Ways to Cry