Evergreen in its figurative uses describes something, such as a plot, that retains its freshness or interest over a long period of time, or something, such as an issue or concern, that is universally and continually relevant. In botany, evergreen describes foliage that remains green and functional through more than one growing season.

// For their first pick of the new year, the book club chose an evergreen self-help book.

// Some of the most popular evergreen trees used as Christmas trees are balsam fir, Fraser fir, and Norway spruce.

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“‘... My hope and my assumption is ... that this movie is an evergreen story about cousins who are trying to experience something very personal.... You can’t predict the context that will surround the thing you wrote two years ago, so it would be foolish to attempt to make some kind of commentary on a world that is ever-changing.’” — Jesse Eisenberg, quoted in The New Yorker, 27 Oct. 2024

O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum: as you are one of the most universally recognized symbols for both the secular and religious observances of Christmas, decorating your lovely branches is an evergreen tradition in two ways. First, because you are almost always an evergreen tree, aka a conifer (such as a fir, spruce, or pine) whose foliage remains green through more than one growing season. Second, because bringing an evergreen into one’s home in late December is an evergreen tradition: one that has occurred perennially, or yearly, since at least the 16th century, when people in what is now Germany used evergreens to celebrate December 24th, the feast day of Adam and Eve. The adjective evergreen is older than its noun counterpart; it was first used literally to describe trees and their foliage, then later took on the figurative senses of “perennial” and “continually relevant.”