DictionaryAI

ephemeral

e-FEM-uh-rul/ɛˈfɛ.mə.ɹəl/

Noun pluralephemerals

3 meanings of ephemeral

Practice

  1. 1
    short-livedadjective
    Lasting for only a very short time; of a flower, insect, or other living thing, living or lasting for a day or a few days.

    Her fame proved ephemeral, and within a year hardly anyone remembered her name.

    Critics dismissed the craze as an ephemeral fashion that would be forgotten by next summer.

    UsageSounds more literary than short-lived or fleeting; it suits fame, fashions and feelings.

    Similarfleeting, transient, short-lived, momentary, passing

    Oppositelasting, permanent, enduring, eternal

    Note

    Writers like to set it against eternity. Mary Shelley's narrator in the 1831 revision of Frankenstein seeks the eternity of Alpine scenes to forget his ephemeral, because human, sorrows, and James Stephen in 1853 praises sentences not of ephemeral, but of eternal, efficacy.

    Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 1 fact

    • Shelley's narrator seeks relief from his human sorrows in the apparent eternity of Alpine scenery; the quoted wording occurs in the 1831 revision. frankensteinvariorum.github.io
  2. 2
    short-lived thingnouncountable
    A thing that lasts or exists for only a short period of time.

    A desert ephemeral can sprout, flower, and drop its seeds within a few weeks of a good rain.

    Next to the great classics, most bestsellers are ephemerals, read for a season and then forgotten.

Less common meaning

  1. 3
    adjective
    Of a stream, lake, or other body of water: usually dry, but holding water for brief periods during and after precipitation.

Use it in a sentence

Write your own sentence with ephemeral, and AI will tell you whether it fits and which meaning you used.

Origin

Two Ancient Greek words, ἐπί (epí, "on") and ἡμέρα (hēméra, "day"), combined to make ἐφημέριος (ephēmérios), with senses such as "of, for, or during the day" and "lasting only a day, short-lived, temporary." The form people used more often, ἐφήμερος (ephḗmeros), became New Latin ephemerus, the source of the English word.

Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 4 facts