toujours

Toujours is a French adverb meaning “always” or “still,” depending on the context. It expresses continuity, habit, or persistence over time and is a common marker of ongoing states or repeated actions in French.

In standard use, toujours typically precedes the verb to indicate a habitual or enduring condition: Je suis toujours ici. It can also be used after the verb for emphasis, though this is less common in everyday speech: Il est là, toujours. In negated constructions, it combines with ne: Il n’est pas toujours à l’heure. The phrase pour toujours is used to mean “forever,” while à tout jamais is a synonym meaning “for all time.”

Toujours appears in numerous common phrases and collocations. Examples include toujours plus (ever more, increasingly), toujours pareil (the same as always), and toujours et toujours (again and again; time after time). The word also forms contrasts with jamais, which means “never,” highlighting how toujours signals persistence where jamais signals the absence of a condition.

Etymology and usage context: the term derives from Old French forms that linked meanings of “all” and “time” or “day” to express lasting continuity, evolving over time into the modern word. In contemporary French, toujours is highly versatile, appearing across formal writing and everyday conversation to convey duration, repetition, and emphasis.