ephemeron means something short-lived or transitory. It carries an Arena rating of 1808, earned across 55 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, ephemeron ranks #198 of 42,747 for Qualifying, #2,178 of 17,124 for Most Sublime Words, #2,615 of 17,130 for Most Beautiful Words, #2,977 of 17,104 for Most Storied Words.
Why “ephemeron” is a great word
That which exists only for a conspicuously brief span. Its name is from the Ancient Greek ἐφήμερον (ephḗmeron), neuter form of ἐφήμερος (ephḗmeros, 'lasting a day, short-lived'), first attested in English in the 1570s. Unlike 'ephemeral,' which describes the quality of brevity, or 'perennial,' which promises return and endurance, an ephemeron is the fleeting thing itself. It is the mayfly drying on a sun-warmed stone, the paper handbill dissolving in a rainstorm, the memory-reference quietly expiring in silicon—a testament to all things whose defining characteristic is the certainty of their vanishing.
Etymology
Borrowed from Ancient Greek ἐφήμερον (ephḗmeron), neuter form of ἐφήμερος (ephḗmeros).
noun
- Something short-lived or transitory.e.g.“Ah!—so frail are we—
So like the brief ephemeron that wheels
Its momentary round, we scarce can weep
Our own bereavements, ere we haste to share
The clay with those we mourn.” — 1834, Lydia Sigourney, Poems, To the Memeory of a Young Lady, page 64:
- A type of weak reference in a garbage collected programming language that does not permit an object to be kept alive by its finalizer.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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