contemporary

noun

plural contemporaries

1

: one that is contemporary with another

Petrarch and Chaucer were contemporaries.

… Her [Toni Morrison's] vision was epic; her voice was lyric, unequaled by any of her contemporaries.

—Larry Allums, quoted in The Dallas Morning News

2

: one of the same or nearly the same age as another

Did you know?

Contemporary can be confusing because of its slightly different meanings. In everyday use, it generally means simply "modern" or "new". But before the 20th century it instead referred only to things from the same era as certain other things; so, for instance, Jesus was contemporary with the Roman emperors Augustus and Tiberius, and Muhammad was contemporary with Pope Gregory the Great. And contemporary is also a noun: thus, Jane Austen's contemporaries included Coleridge and Wordsworth, and your own contemporaries were born around the same year that you were.

Synonyms of contemporary

• companion
• accompaniment
• counterpart
• coeval
• equivalent

Examples of contemporary in a Sentence

He was a contemporary of George Washington.

She is politically very different from most of her contemporaries.

Recent Examples on the Web

A lot of my contemporaries were gone. —Stephanie Nolasco, FOXNews.com, 6 June 2026

And some of the bees that technically failed the test may have actually outsmarted their contemporaries—by learning to work smarter, not harder. —Adam Kovac, Scientific American, 4 June 2026

Knight is a lot better at this than most of his contemporaries, but tactility can be difficult to fake for someone who usually doesn’t have to. —David Ehrlich, IndieWire, 2 June 2026

Unlike contemporaries such as Nirvana, a punk band that wanted to shred the patriarchal rock hegemony of the ’80s, and Pearl Jam, which functioned as an exorcism for the soul night in and night out, Corgan never hid his rock star ambitions. —David Harris, SPIN, 2 June 2026

Word History

Etymology

derivative of contemporary entry 1, or from nominal use of its probable source, New Latin contemporārius

First Known Use

1614, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for contemporary

• accretionary
• apothecary
• bicentenary
• certiorari
• concessionary
• concretionary
• confectionary
• confectionery
• constabulary
• deflationary
• depositary
• disciplinary

Kids Definition

contemporary

1 of 2 adjective

con·​tem·​po·​rary kən-ˈtem-pə-ˌrer-ē 

1

: living or occurring at the same period of time

2

: of the present time : modern, current

contemporary

2 of 2 noun

plural contemporaries

: a person who lives at the same time or is about the same age as another