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Temporal existence is often contrasted with spiritual existence, which many religions teach is eternal. The American system of government features a separation of church and state—that is, a separation of spiritual and temporal authority. But such separation is relatively recent. In past centuries, the Roman Catholic Church exerted temporal authority—that is, political power—throughout much of Europe, and the Church of England has always been officially headed by the temporal ruler of Great Britain. Temporal isn't always used in religious contexts; for example, child psychologists often measure "temporal processing"—that is, speed of thinking—in children with mental difficulties. Note that temporal may also mean "near the temples (of the head);" thus, your brain's temporal lobes are situated at your temples. But this temporal is based on a different Latin root.
Synonyms
Examples of temporal in a Sentence
Flynne Bachleda, Publisher's Weekly, 15 Aug. 1994
By eschewing history and politics, The Last Train From Madrid leeches war of its particular temporal context, providing an eight-year-old with his first glimpse of war as eternal anonymous suffering.
—Donald Hall, Harper's, May 1991
… each in their own way wanted an authority which could both uphold the law and maintain the order of society; once the first age was over, the consequence of this was the de facto separation between those who maintained the law … and the men of the sword who had the power to enforce temporal order.
—Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples, 1991
The history of life is not a continuum of development, but a record punctuated by brief, sometimes geologically instantaneous, episodes of mass extinction and subsequent diversification. The geological time scale maps this history, for fossils provide our chief criterion in fixing the temporal order of rocks.
—Stephen Jay Gould, Wonderful Life, 1989
do not worry about temporal concerns, but instead focus on spiritual matters
administrators on campus are in place to deal with students' temporal needs, and spiritual advisors are available to help students with their nontemporal needs
Lance Eliot, Forbes, 8 Oct. 2024
But Butterworth, among our most sophisticated structuralists, also builds a complicated temporal armature for the familiar tale of a deluded, fame-hungry stage mother.
—Helen Shaw, The New Yorker, 3 Oct. 2024
Unlike spatial upscaling, which upscales an image based on a single frame, temporal upscaling involves using multiple frames to generate a higher-quality image.
—Emma Roth, The Verge, 11 July 2024
The temporal framing for the exhibition, 1780s to 1920s, comes from the pictograph in which each year is marked by a picture or a glyph that marks an important event that happened in that year.
—Carin Schoppmeyer, arkansasonline.com, 22 Sep. 2024
See all Example Sentences for temporal 
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'temporal.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near temporal
Cite this Entry
“Temporal.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/temporal. Accessed 24 Oct. 2024.
Copy CitationMedical Definition
temporal
1 of 3 adjective
temporal
2 of 3 nountemporal
3 of 3 adjective
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