Lasting, permanent, perdurable, durable, stable, perpetual mean enduring for so long as to seem fixed or established.
Lasting may imply long continuance with no end in sight; in this sense, it may be close in connotation to everlasting. More typically, however, it does not imply endlessness, but rather a surprising capacity to continue indefinitely.
Permanent applies chiefly to things which are not temporary, tentative, transitory, or fluctuating but which continue or are likely or expected to continue indefinitely or as long as relevant; thus, a permanent position may be expected to continue on the one hand until death or retirement removes the employee holding it or, on the other, until fundamental changes in or termination of the business of the employer renders it superfluous; permanent damage to an object is damage that will remain as long as the object persists.
Perdurable carries a stronger implication than does lasting in its typical use of endlessness of existence; but it suggests endless or apparently endless existence especially from the point of view of human remembrance or human history.
Durable implies power of resistance to destructive agencies; it usually suggests a capacity for lasting that exceeds that of other things of the same kind or sort.
Stable applies to what is so firmly or solidly established that it cannot be moved or changed; the term therefore is applicable to things that are lasting or durable because they are deeply rooted, or finely balanced, or infixed and not subject or likely to be subject to fluctuations.
Perpetual (see also CONTINUAL ) is in many respects closer to permanent than to the remaining terms but it differs from it signally in the absence of any notion of relevance and may approach everlasting in its suggestion of an endless course or a going on without a prospect of something intervening to bring about an end; thus, the furnace has a permanent, not a perpetual, place in the cellar since the cellar itself will ultimately crumble away; perpetual, rather than permanent, motion is considered impossible because of the inevitable interference of friction.