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Ephemeral vs Sempiternal - What's the difference?

ephemeral | sempiternal |

As adjectives the difference between ephemeral and sempiternal

is that ephemeral is lasting for a short period of time while sempiternal is seemingly everlasting or eternal.

As a noun ephemeral

is something which lasts for a short period of time.

ephemeral

English

(wikipedia ephemeral)

Noun

(en noun)
  • Something which lasts for a short period of time.

    • Synonyms

    * (short-lived) ephemeron

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Lasting for a short period of time.
  • * Vicesimus Knox
    • Esteem, lasting esteem, the esteem of good men, like himself, will be his reward, when the gale of ephemeral popularity shall have gradually subsided.
  • * Sir J. Stephen
    • sentences not of ephemeral , but of eternal, efficacy
  • * '>citation
    • It was during an access of this kind that I suddenly left my home, and bending my steps towards the near Alpine valleys, sought in the magnificence, the eternity of such scenes, to forget myself and my ephemeral , because human, sorrows.
  • (biology) Existing for only one day, as with some flowers, insects, and diseases.
  • (geology, of a body of water) Usually dry, but filling with water for brief periods during and after precipitation.
  • * 1986 , W.H. Raymond, "Clinoptilolite Deposit in the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, South Dakota, U.S.A.", in Y?ichi Murakami et al. (editors), New Developments in Zeolite Science and Technology (conference proceedings), Elsevier, ISBN 978-0-444-98981-9, page 80:
    • The graben constitutes a depositional basin and a topographic low, underlain by Cretaceous shales, in which volcanic debris accumulated in ephemeral lakes and streams in Oligocene and early Miocene time.

    Synonyms

    * (lasting for a short period of time) temporary, transitory, fleeting, evanescent, momentary, short-lived, short, volatile * See also

    Antonyms

    * (lasting for a long period of time) permanent, eternal, everlasting, timeless.

    Derived terms

    * ephemerally

    Related terms

    * ephemera * ephemeron * ephemerality

    External links

    * *

    sempiternal

    English

    Adjective

    (-)
  • Seemingly everlasting or eternal.
  • * 1841 , ",
    • The one thing which we seek with insatiable desire is to lose our sempiternal memory and to do something without knowing how or why; in short to draw a new circle.
  • * 2008 , Shivangi Singh, " A sneak-peek at 'just friends' of filmdom!", ZeeNews , August 2,
    • but in filmdom, the sempiternal question continues: Can a male and female actor be just 'good friends'?
  • (philosophy) everlasting, that is having infinite temporal duration; as opposed to eternal, outside time and thus lacking temporal duration

    • Related terms

    * sempitern * sempiternally * sempiternity

    Antonyms

    * eternal

    Anagrams

    * * English words suffixed with -al