# transient

Pronunciation: US say "TRAN-shuhnt" /ˈtɹæn.ʃənt/; UK say "TRAN-zee-uhnt" /ˈtɹan.zi.ənt/

## Adjective

1. Lasting only a short time; passing away with time, or occurring only briefly or now and then rather than persistently.
   - Simple: Lasting or happening for only a short time, or only now and then, and then going away.
   - _Fame on social media is transient, and many viral stars are forgotten within a year._
   - _The medicine can cause a transient headache that clears up within an hour._
2. Staying only briefly while passing through, or being handed on from person to person.
   - Simple: Moving through a place, or going from one person to another.
   - _The lake is a stopover for transient geese on their way south._
   - _The motel depends on transient guests driving the interstate rather than on long-term tenants._
7. In physics, decaying over time, especially exponentially.
   - Simple: In physics, getting smaller over time until it fades away.
   - _After the switch closes, the transient current falls off exponentially toward zero._
   - _Once the transient part of the response dies out, only the steady oscillation remains._

## Noun

3. Something short-lived or passing; especially a brief phenomenon such as a sudden surge of electric current or a short-lived event in the sky.
   - Simple: Something that lasts only a short time, especially a sudden, brief jump in electric current.
   - _A lightning strike nearby sent a transient through the building's wiring._
   - _Surge protectors clamp transients before they can reach sensitive electronics._
4. A homeless person.
   - Simple: A person who has no home.
   - _A transient was asleep in the doorway of the closed bank, wrapped in a blanket._
   - _Police cleared a camp of transients from under the overpass._
5. In audio, a very brief, relatively loud, non-repeating signal in a waveform, such as the attack of a snare drum.
   - Simple: In sound, a very quick, loud burst that does not repeat, like the hit of a drum.
   - _The compressor flattened the transients, and the drums lost much of their punch._
   - _A good condenser microphone captures the sharp transient of a plucked guitar string._
6. A person who stays in a place only briefly while passing through, such as a traveler or a migrant worker.
   - Simple: A person who stays in a place for only a short time, like a traveler or someone who moves around for work.
   - _In harvest season the valley fills with transients who pick fruit for a few weeks and move on._
   - _Every transient who stopped at the diner had a story about the road ahead._
8. A homestay: a private house, or rooms in one, rented to visitors for a short stay. *(Philippines)*
   - Simple: A family's house, or rooms in it, that visitors rent for a short stay.
   - _We booked a transient near Session Road for our weekend in Baguio._
   - _During the festival the family turned their second floor into a transient for tourists._

## Other meanings

- (noun) In programming, a module that usually stays in memory only for a short time.
- (adjective) Of a state in a stochastic process: having a positive probability that, once left, it is never visited again.
- (adjective) In music, intermediate: coming between one point and another.
- (adjective) In philosophy, operating beyond itself; having an effect outside itself.

## Origin

Latin transire ("to go over, to pass") has the present participle transiēns. Its Late Latin stem transiēnt-, which stands in for classical transeunt-, is the source of the English word.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/transient (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).