Ubiquitous

From Latin "ubique," "everywhere," from "ubi" ("where"). The noun ubiquity arrived in English in the 16th century as a theological term for God’s presence in all places at once. By the 19th century the adjective had shed its religious weight and come to describe anything that seems to be everywhere.

  1. adjective · /yoo-BIK-wih-tus/

    Present everywhere at once, or seeming to turn up wherever you look.

    Not merely common but saturating — use it when something has spread so thoroughly that its absence would be the surprise, like screens or a hit song one summer.

    Within a year the little earbuds had become ubiquitous, dangling from every commuter on the platform.

    Distinct from pervasive, which stresses spreading through and soaking into something; ubiquitous stresses being found in every place.