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Fleeting vs Ethereal - What's the difference?

fleeting | ethereal |

As adjectives the difference between fleeting and ethereal

is that fleeting is passing quickly while ethereal is pertaining to the hypothetical upper, purer air, or to the higher regions beyond the earth or beyond the atmosphere; celestial; otherworldly; as, ethereal space; ethereal regions.

As a verb fleeting

is .

fleeting

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Passing quickly.
  • * 1931 , Martha Kinross, "The Screen — From This Side", The Fortnightly , Volume 130, page 511:
    • Architecture, sculpture, painting are static arts. Even in literature "our flying minds," as George Meredith says, cannot contain protracted description. It is so; for from sequences of words they must assemble all the details in one simultaneous impression. But moments of fleeting beauty too transient to be caught by any means less swift than light itself are registered on the screen.
  • * 2003 , Gabrielle Walker, Snowball Earth: The Story of a Maverick Scientist and His Theory of the Global Catastrophe That Spawned Life As We Know It , Three Rivers Press (2003), ISBN 1400051258, pages 34-35:
    • During the fleeting summer months of his field season, when the outer vestiges of winter melted briefly, there were ponds and pools and lakes of water everywhere.
  • * 2008 , Barbara L. Bellman & Susan Goldstein, Flirting After Fifty: Lessons for Grown-Up Women on How to Find Love Again , iUniverse (2008), ISBN 9780595428281, page 12:
    • For starters, we see examples all the time of some middle-aged men trying to hang onto their own fleeting youth by sporting younger women on their arms.
  • * 2010 , Leslie Ludy, The Lost Art of True Beauty: The Set-Apart Girl's Guide to Feminine Grace , Harvest House Publishers (2010), ISBN 9780736922906, page 5:
    • And I am inspired afresh to pursue the stunning beauty of Christ rather than the fleeting beauty of this world.

    Synonyms

    * ephemeral * See also .

    Verb

    (head)

    • ethereal

    English

    Alternative forms

    * aethereal * aetherial * * (obsolete) * * (obsolete)

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Pertaining to the hypothetical upper, purer air, or to the higher regions beyond the earth or beyond the atmosphere; celestial; otherworldly; as, ethereal space; ethereal regions.
  • * 1667 : , Paradise Lost , book VII
    • Go, heavenly guest, ethereal messenger.
  • * 1862 : , Walking .
    • I trust that we shall be more imaginative, that our thoughts will be clearer, fresher, and more ethereal , as our sky,...
  • Consisting of ether; hence, exceedingly light or airy; tenuous; spiritlike; characterized by extreme delicacy, as form, manner, thought, etc.
  • * 1733 : , An Essay on Man
    • Vast chain of being, which from God began, Natures ethereal , human, angel, man.
  • Delicate, light and airy.

    • Derived terms

    * ethereality * ethereally * etherealness * etherealization * etherealisation * etherealizing

    References

    * American English forms