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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

... draped with snowy lace, lightly embroidered at the edges, and looped with cords of blue and silver—tables with marble tops, supporting porcelain vases filled with flowers, were placed between the windows, for these ephemeral children of sunshine were dear to the heart of the dying one. Beside one of these stood a large cushioned chair, in which reclined a young man of delicate features and wasted form. He appeared in the last stages of his fell disease, and the friends who had received ...

— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various

... difficulty is, however, that the results are not permanent; the facts learned do not have time to seek out and link themselves to well-established associates; learned in an hour, their retention is as ephemeral as the application which ...

— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts

... seek so much to cover up as public affairs. But the thing was done somewhat more boldly and baldly in Walpole's day; and the Censorship of plays has its origin, not merely in tyranny, but in a quite trifling and temporary and partisan piece of tyranny; a thing in its nature far more ephemeral, far less essential, than Ship Money. Perhaps its brightest moment was when the office of censor was held by that filthy writer, Colman the younger; and when he gravely refused to license a work by the author of Our Village. ...

— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton

... will come to question, as never before, both its direction and its results. He is bound to perceive, if he does not perceive already, that the war's arrestment of architecture (in all but its most utilitarian and ephemeral phases) is no great loss to the world for the reason that our architecture was uninspired, unoriginal, done without joy, without reverence, without conviction: a thing which any wind of a new spirit ...

— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon

... at Abbotsford has felt of the white beaver hat of Sir Walter Scott knows that he has touched part—and a very considerable part—of Sir Walter. The hat, the boots, the waistcoat are far less ephemeral than the body they protect, and indicate almost as much of the wearer's character as his hands and face. So I am not ashamed of my silk pajamas or of the geranium powder I throw in my bath. They are ...

— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train

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