EPHEMERAL • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Ephemeral

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/ɪfˈɛmərəl/ Listen

adjective

Ephemeral adj.

Beginning and ending in a day; existing only, or no longer than, a day; diurnal; as, an ephemeral flower.

Short-lived; existing or continuing for a short time only. "Ephemeral popularity." "Sentences not of ephemeral, but of eternal, efficacy."

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 larvae are aquatic; called also day fly and May fly.

noun

Ephemeral n. Anything lasting but a day, or a brief time; an ephemeral plant, insect, etc.

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Etymology of 'Ephemeral'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Ephemeral" Quotes from Famous Books

... room Susan saw them returning and looked surprised as well as a bit annoyed. Truth to tell, Mistress Susan, with her capacity for admiring and being admired, had conceived a momentary interest in the stranger, a fancy as light as it was ephemeral. That touch of melancholy when his face was in repose inspired a transitory desire for investigation in this past-mistress of emotional analysis. But the arrival of the coach which had passed the couple soon diverted Susan's thoughts ...

— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... widely into our opinions. To one person an institution which has existed for the whole of his conscious life is part of the permanent furniture of the universe: to another it is ephemeral. Geological time is very different from biological time. Social time is most complex. The statesman has to decide whether to calculate for the emergency or for the long run. Some decisions have to be made on the basis of what will ...

— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann

... the side of many. It was the all-absorbing interest; it embraced not only worship and prayer, but what we call philosophy, morality, law, and government—all was pervaded by religion. Their whole life was to them a religion—everything else was, as it were, a mere concession made to the ephemeral requirements of ...

— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller

... I should rather elect to regard Irving in the abstract, when called upon to suggest a fitting monument, than to promise a faithful portrait?... Let us be grateful, however, that a great artist is to be commemorated at all, side by side with the effigies of great Butchers of mankind, and ephemeral statesmen, the ...

— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry

... G——, for a mistress, I think, by choice, I should have liked her, better as a confidante; be that as it may, I felt on leaving them as though I could not live without either. Who would have thought that I should never see them more; and that here our ephemeral amours must end? ...

— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

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