Vocabulary

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ephemeral

ih-FEM-er-uhl · adjective · literary

Lasting for a very short time.

time
GRE
literary
difficulty 3/5

Explain it three ways

Greek doctors used ephemeros for a fever that burned through a patient in a single day. The word kept the shape of that one-day life and handed it to anything brief: mayflies, snowfall on warm pavement, a mood.

In use

  • The ephemeral glow after sunset lasted maybe four minutes.
  • Startup fame is ephemeral; the craft underneath is not.

Origin

Greek ephēmeros 'lasting only a day', from epi- 'on' + hēmera 'day'.