Word of the Day:

: lasting a short time : evanescent

The rock band's rise in popularity turned out to be fugacious, and within two years its members had moved on to other careers.

"The maple leaves are a yellow light signaling me to slow down and take in the last pulse of color of a fugacious fall." — David Johnson, The Daily News of Newburyport (Massachusetts), 26 Nov. 2013

Fugacious is often used to describe immaterial things like emotions, but not always. Botanists, for example, use it to describe plant parts that wither or fall off before the usual time. Things that are fugacious are fleeting, and etymologically they can also be said to be fleeing. Fugacious derives from the Latin verb fugere, which means "to flee." Other descendants of fugere include fugitive, refuge, and subterfuge.