transitory

• POS: Adjective
• HYPHEN: tran=si=to=ry

CIDE DICTIONARY

transitory, a. [L. transitorius: cf. F. transitoire. See Transient.].

 Continuing only for a short time; not enduring; fleeting; evanescent.  [1913 Webster]
"Comfort and succor all those who, in this transitory life, are in trouble."  [1913 Webster]
"It was not the transitory light of a comet, which shines and glows for a wile, and then . . . vanishes into nothing."  [1913 Webster]

Transitory action (Law), an action which may be brought in any county, as actions for debt, and the like; -- opposed to local action. Blackstone. Bouvier.

Syn. -- transient; short-lived; brief. See Transient.

OXFORD DICTIONARY

transitory, adj. not permanent, brief, transient.

Idiom

transitory action Law an action that can be brought in any country irrespective of where the transaction etc. started.

Derivative

transitorily adv. transitoriness n.

Etymology

ME f. AF transitorie, OF transitoire f. L transitorius (as TRANSIT)

THESAURUS

transitory

able to adapt, adaptable, adjustable, alterable, alterative, brief, brittle, capricious, changeable, checkered, circumforaneous, corruptible, deciduous, discursive, divagatory, drifting, dying, ephemeral, errant, evanescent, ever-changing, fading, fickle, fleeting, flexible, flitting, floating, fluid, fly-by-night, flying, footloose, footloose and fancy-free, fragile, frail, fugacious, fugitive, gadding, gypsy-like, gypsyish, impermanent, impetuous, impulsive, inconstant, insubstantial, kaleidoscopic, landloping, malleable, many-sided, meandering, metamorphic, migrational, migratory, mobile, modifiable, momentary, mortal, movable, mutable, nomad, nomadic, nondurable, nonpermanent, nonuniform, passing, perishable, permutable, plastic, protean, proteiform, rambling, ranging, resilient, roaming, roving, rubbery, shifting, short-lived, short-term, straggling, straying, strolling, supple, temporal, temporary, traipsing, transient, transitive, transmigratory, transubstantiate, undurable, unenduring, unstable, vagabond, vagrant, variable, volatile, wandering

ROGET THESAURUS

transitory

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.