transience

noun

tran·​sience ˈtran(t)-sh(ē-)ən(t)s 

ˈtran-zē-ən(t)s,

ˈtran(t)-sē-;

ˈtran-zhən(t)s,

-jən(t)s

: the quality or state of being transient

Synonyms

• ephemerality
• evanescence
• fleetingness
• fugitiveness
• impermanence
• impermanency
• momentariness
• temporariness
• transiency
• transitoriness

Examples of transience in a Sentence

the transience of spring in northern climates means residents get to enjoy temperate weather only briefly before the heat and humidity of summer set in

Recent Examples on the Web

The group embraced its own transience in performances that existed only in the seconds needed to sing or say or spin them. —Jackson Arn, The New Yorker, 4 Mar. 2024

What is so poignant about culinary art, especially as practiced at this level, is its transience. —Peter Rainer, The Christian Science Monitor, 30 Nov. 2023

But what the movie is really about is the passage, and the transience, of life. —Peter Rainer, The Christian Science Monitor, 20 Dec. 2023

The transience of the tourist, the intractability of the laborer. —Doreen St. Félix, The New Yorker, 17 Nov. 2023

Most fundamentally, you’ll be exposed to the geological story behind the sturdy stone that carvers use to immortalize human transience. —Walter Nicklin, Washington Post, 16 June 2022

An award-winning story that is about love, the transience of youth, the quest for meaning, and Frito-Lay. —Grace Henes, The New Yorker, 7 Aug. 2023

Seattle is no stranger to the transience of corporate identity. —Rachel Lerman, Washington Post, 8 Apr. 2023

Yet Weber emphasized the transience of facts and also the social character of scientific knowledge—both are in their way as delicate as values and beliefs in an age of disenchantment. —Peter E. Gordon, The New York Review of Books, 19 Nov. 2020

Word History

First Known Use

1739, in the meaning defined above