Evanescent
[iːvə'nes(ə)nt;ev-] or [,ɛvə'nɛsnt]
Definition
(a.) Liable to vanish or pass away like vapor; vanishing; fleeting; as, evanescent joys.
(a.) Vanishing from notice; imperceptible.
Editor: Wendell
Synonyms and Synonymous
a. Vanishing, fleeting, transitory, transient, passing, flitting, fugitive, flying, ephemeral, short-lived.
Inputed by Frieda
Synonyms and Antonyms
[See EPHEMERAL]
Editor: Nancy
Definition
adj. fleeting; imperceptible.—v.i. Evanesce′ to fade away.—n. Evanes′cence.—adv. Evanes′cently.
Editor: Ozzie
Examples
- This feeling was evidently evanescent, for on the succeeding Monday the work was continued and carried on by him as keenly as before, as shown by the next batch of notes. Frank Lewis Dyer. Edison, His Life and Inventions.
- He was aloof and white, and somehow evanescent. D. H. Lawrence. Women in Love .
- All was unstable; quivering as leaves, evanescent as lightning. Thomas Hardy. The Return of the Native.
- All else is but dross, or evanescent dreams which vanish into oblivion in the light of a larger knowledge. Edward W. Byrn. The Progress of Invention in the Nineteenth Century.
- I know not how to express or communicate the sense of concentrated, intense, though evanescent transport, that imparadized us in the present hour. Mary Shelley. The Last Man.
- What, then, would it avail the reader to know their names, or the evanescent symbols of their martial rank! Walter Scott. Ivanhoe.
- They are all human figures that wanton in the rocks--a crowd of foam-women--a band of white, evanescent Nereids. Charlotte Bronte. Shirley.
- How evanescent, fugitive, fitful she looked--slim and swift as a northern streamer! Charlotte Bronte. Shirley.
- He looked over all the dim, evanescent, strangely illuminated faces that bent across the tables. D. H. Lawrence. Women in Love .
- My feelings are not quite so evanescent, nor my memory of the past under such easy dominion as one finds to be the case with men of the world. Jane Austen. Mansfield Park.
Editor: Ozzie