Permanence is the fact of lasting — of going on for a long time, or for always, rather than being temporary. If something has permanence, people expect it to stay. It is a slightly formal, abstract noun: you hear it about jobs, homes, buildings, laws, and feelings. A short contract has little permanence; a stone wall can give a place a feeling of permanence. Writers like the word because people often want this and cannot quite have it. In ordinary talk, the adjective permanent is much more common (“a permanent job”). Permanence names the lasting-ness itself. It does not mean the thing can never change — only that it is built, or meant, to last.