as in shortness
the state or quality of lasting only for a short time 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

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of transience But that depth is harder to maintain in the NIL/portal era of player transience. Matt Baker, The Athletic, 9 Jan. 2025 Although there will always be opposition to change, college sports have entered a new era defined by transience, athlete empowerment, and business acumen rather than the traditional amateur ideal. Mark Lasota, Ph.d., Forbes, 22 Dec. 2024 Taken together, the series might seem the ultimate Impressionist statement on transience (even an eight-hundred-year-old slab blushes with the hours). Jackson Arn, The New Yorker, 16 Sep. 2024 Spirit's ephemerality is so visible that even Saturday Night Live poked fun at its transience in a recent sketch. Megan Cerullo, CBS News, 29 Oct. 2024 See All Example Sentences for transience
Recent Examples of Synonyms for transience
Noun
  • Buddhism teaches impermanence as a path to compassion and non-attachment.
    Greg Orme, Forbes.com, 2 Apr. 2025
  • Bringing this piece to the Bangkok Experimental Film Festival is important because this city, this region, understands impermanence.
    Naman Ramachandran, Variety, 22 Jan. 2025
Noun
  • But transiency in the back of the bullpen extends well beyond Woodward’s arrival.
    Dallas News, Dallas News, 27 July 2022
  • The council will hold a workshop outlining strategies and efforts to remedy homelessness and transiency in the city.
    Laura Groch, San Diego Union-Tribune, 28 Feb. 2021
Noun
  • Jia’s sense of the ephemerality of the medium, and of the world that the medium reflects, has seldom been more stirringly profound.
    Justin Chang, New Yorker, 2 May 2025
  • Through that love and care, and ephemerality and movement over permanence and rigidity.
    Maximilíano Durón, ARTnews.com, 3 Mar. 2025
Noun
  • To explain why a gag is funny is to crush its soufflé evanescence.
    Stephanie Zacharek, TIME, 19 Mar. 2025
  • The Stranger with its exploration of another facet of exile and belonging, this time set on a flood-prone German island that exists in a perpetual struggle between evanescence and permanence.
    Jay D. Weissberg, Deadline, 19 Feb. 2025

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Cite this Entry

“Transience.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/transience. Accessed 9 May. 2025.

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