-ˈfē-
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The Mayfly Helps to Illustrate Ephemeral
In its aquatic immature stages, the mayfly (order Ephemeroptera) has all the time in the world—or not quite: among the approximately 2,500 species of mayflies, some have as much as two years, but a year is more common. But in its adult phase, the typical mayfly hatches, takes wing for the first time, mates, and dies within the span of a few short hours. This briefest of heydays makes the insect a potent symbol of life's ephemeral nature. When ephemeral (from the Greek word ephēmeros, meaning "lasting a day") first appeared in print in English in the late 16th century, it was a scientific term applied to short-term fevers, and later, to organisms (such as insects and flowers) with very short life spans. Soon after that, it acquired an extended sense referring to anything fleeting and short-lived, as in "ephemeral pleasures."
Synonyms
Examples of ephemeral in a Sentence
Joyce Carol Oates, Times Literary Supplement, 5 Jan. 1996
As a consequence North Africa was easily reconquered by the Byzantine emperor in the 530s, and the Vandals' influence on North African development was ephemeral and negligible.
—Norman F. Cantor, The Civilization of the Middle Ages, 1993
This accounts for the peculiar sense most observers have that the ephemeral, sensationalist, polymorphous, magpie popular culture of the United States is at bottom remarkably conservative …
—Louis Menand, Harper's, March 1993
the autumnal blaze of colors is always to be treasured, all the more so because it is so ephemeral
Vanessa Friedman, New York Times, 8 Nov. 2023
Earlier this year, the ephemeral message-sharing app Snapchat launched My AI, a chatbot designed to give users recommendations on everything from their cars to planning a wedding.
—Naomi Nix, Washington Post, 27 Sep. 2023
All three of the Mirai creators had been careful to do their hacking on remote servers and to connect to them only from ephemeral virtual machines that ran on their own PCs.
—Andy Greenberg, WIRED, 14 Nov. 2023
Two years later, Snapchat launched Stories, where users could share a series of photos and videos to all of their friends that would be viewable for only 24 hours, creating demand for more spontaneous, ephemeral types of content across social media.
—Clare Duffy, CNN, 19 Oct. 2023
In real life, skating is an art form that requires constant sacrifice, physical pain and public embarrassment for the sake of an ephemeral few seconds of pure beauty.
—Jack Sheehan, New York Times, 11 Oct. 2023
Mark was a fan of the pairing of a sparkly cocktail dress with a T-shirt at Miu Miu, and of the ephemeral Prada collection, with all its flowing chiffon.
—Alex Jhamb Burns, Vogue, 5 Oct. 2023
Such ephemeral accommodations are a drastic change for Antakya, a city with thousands of years of history, where intermixed churches and mosques recalled an ecumenical past, shoppers bought local sweets and cheeses in an arched bazaar and flowering bougainvillea climbed the walls of stone houses.
—Nimet Kirac Nicole Tung, New York Times, 1 Oct. 2023
Once again, ephemeral discoveries (in this case, a young professor’s find of a Nigerian chi wara mask in an antiques store) lead to gorgeous fractals of thought on culture, race and history, revealing inner currents of anger, memory and hope.
—Mark Athitakis, Los Angeles Times, 28 Aug. 2023
Vince Aletti, The New Yorker, 22 Oct. 2023
At the end of the day, the goal is to have something to hold onto: a digital file, a CD, a record, anything other than an ephemeral stream.
—Denise Lu, New York Times, 19 Sep. 2023
With her philanthropic efforts, Kaufman doesn’t like to fund a single performance because of its ephemeral and temporary nature.
—Steven Vargas, Los Angeles Times, 31 Aug. 2023
Julian Gonzalez, senior legislative counsel with Earthjustice, said the change is likely to weaken protections for ephemeral streams, which only flow after rainstorms and are especially common in the arid Southwest.
—Michael Phillis, Matthew Daly and John Flesher, Anchorage Daily News, 29 Aug. 2023
While most rivers in the U.S. are perennial, across the arid West, ephemeral and intermittent rivers are more common because of drought and their reliance on snowmelt mountain runoff.
—Jake Frederico, The Arizona Republic, 19 June 2023
As long as tech companies hold the power, everything online is ephemeral.
—Alphonse Pierre, Pitchfork, 3 Nov. 2023
From the ephemeral to the essential, portmanteaus demonstrate English speakers' creativity and love of wordplay.
—Melissa Mohr, The Christian Science Monitor, 18 Oct. 2023
Meta said in a blog post this week that the company had fixed bugs that prevented some users’ posts, ephemeral videos known as Stories and short-form videos known as Reels from showing up properly.
—Naomi Nix, Washington Post, 20 Oct. 2023
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These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'ephemeral.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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Cite this Entry
“Ephemeral.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ephemeral. Accessed 4 Dec. 2023.
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Kids Definition
ephemeral
adjective
Medical Definition
ephemeral
adjective
-ˈfēm-
More from Merriam-Webster on ephemeral
Nglish: Translation of ephemeral for Spanish Speakers
Britannica English: Translation of ephemeral for Arabic Speakers
Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about ephemeral
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