Home › Glossary › Letter S

Set in stone

Idiomatic Phrase
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Fixed permanently and unchangeable; stone metaphor describing inscriptions carved in rock that cannot be erased or altered, symbolizing absolute certainty and immutability.

Detailed Definition
Set in stone means fixed, permanent, unchangeable, or formally decided. In poetry, the idiom draws on the durability of carved stone, monuments, tablets, graves, and law. It can describe rules, promises, identities, traditions, or fates treated as immovable. A poet may use it sincerely for solemn permanence, or critically when living experience is forced into rigid form. The phrase is valuable for contrasting fluid human feeling with hard social structures, and for asking what should or should not endure.
Example
Example in poetry:
A love poem might say no vow is set in stone until tested by winter; In a political poem, laws thought set in stone may crumble beneath justice; The phrase means fixed and unchangeable; A poet can use it to question permanence.
Additional Notes
Set in stone means fixed, permanent, or unchangeable. In poetry, the stone image suggests monuments, laws, graves, tablets, and endurance, but also coldness and rigidity. It is useful for vows, rules, fate, memory, and social conventions. Students should ask whether permanence is comforting or oppressive. A poem may challenge what seems set in stone by showing erosion, revision, weathering, or the living voice against dead inscription.
Also Known As
fixed
Skip to main content