ephemeral

• POS: Adjective, Noun
• HYPHEN: e=phem=er=al

CIDE DICTIONARY

ephemeral, a. 

•  Beginning and ending in a day; existing only, or no longer than, a day; diurnal; as, an ephemeral flower.  [1913 Webster]
•  Short-lived; existing or continuing for a short time only.  V. Knox.  [1913 Webster]

  "Sentences not of ephemeral, but of eternal, efficacy."  [1913 Webster]

Ephemeral fly (Zoöl.), one of a group of neuropterous insects, belonging to the genus Ephemera and many allied genera, which live in the adult or winged state only for a short time. The larvæ are aquatic; -- called also day fly and May fly.

ephemeral, n. 

 Anything lasting but a day, or a brief time; an ephemeral plant, insect, etc.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

ephemeral, adj.
1 lasting or of use for only a short time; transitory.
2 lasting only a day.
3 (of an insect, flower, etc.) lasting a day or a few days.

Derivative

ephemerality n. ephemerally adv. ephemeralness n.

Etymology

Gk ephemeros: see EPHEMERA

THESAURUS

ephemeral

brief, brittle, capricious, changeable, corruptible, deciduous, dying, episodic, evanescent, evergreen, fading, fickle, fleeting, flitting, fly-by-night, flying, fragile, frail, fugacious, fugitive, half-hardy, hardy, impermanent, impetuous, impulsive, inconstant, insubstantial, momentary, mortal, mutable, nondurable, nonpermanent, passing, perennial, perishable, short, short-lived, subject to death, temporal, temporary, transient, transitive, transitory, undurable, unenduring, unstable, volatile

ROGET THESAURUS

ephemeral

Transientness

N transience, transientness, evanescence, impermanence, fugacity, caducity, mortality, span, nine days' wonder, bubble, Mayfly, spurt, flash in the pan, temporary arrangement, interregnum, velocity, suddenness, changeableness, transient, transient boarder, transient guest, transient, transitory, transitive, passing, evanescent, fleeting, cursory, short-lived, ephemeral, flying, fugacious, fugitive, shifting, slippery, spasmodic, instantaneous, momentaneous, temporal, temporary, provisional, provisory, deciduous, perishable, mortal, precarious, unstable, insecure, impermanent, brief, quick, brisk, extemporaneous, summary, pressed for time, sudden, momentary, temporarily, pro tempore, for the moment, for a time, awhile, en passant, in transitu, in a short time, soon, briefly, at short notice, on the point of, on the eve of, in articulo, between cup and lip, one's days are numbered, the time is up, here today and gone tomorrow, non semper erit aestas, eheu! fugaces labuntur anni, sic transit gloria mundi, a schoolboy's tale, the wonder of the hour!, dum loquimur fugerit invidia aetas, fugit hora, all that is transitory is but an illusion.