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Temporary vs Temporal - What's the difference?

temporary | temporal |

As adjectives the difference between temporary and temporal

is that temporary is not permanent; existing only for a period or periods of time while temporal is of or relating to time.

As nouns the difference between temporary and temporal

is that temporary is one serving for a limited time; short-term employee while temporal is anything temporal or secular; a temporality.

temporary

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Not permanent; existing only for a period or periods of time.
  • Existing only for a short time or short times; transient, ephemeral.
  • Synonyms

    * See also

    Noun

    (temporaries)
  • One serving for a limited time; short-term employee.
  • Synonyms

    * temp

    temporal

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) temporal, from (etyl) temporal, from (etyl) temporalis, from .

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Of or relating to time.
  • Of limited time; not perpetual.
  • * Bible, 2 Corinthians iv. 18
  • The things which are seen are temporal , but the things which are not seen are eternal.
  • Of or relating to the material world, as opposed to (spiritual).
  • * 2011 , Thomas Penn, Winter King , Penguin 2012, p. 166:
  • Not long before, he had ruefully acknowledged in a letter to his pious mother that most of his appointments to the bench of bishops had been motivated by distinctly temporal impulses.
  • Lasting a short time only.
  • Civil or political, as distinguished from ecclesiastical.
  • temporal''' power; '''temporal courts
    Derived terms
    * extratemporal * metatemporal * temporality * temporally

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (chiefly, in the plural) Anything temporal or secular; a temporality.
  • (Dryden)
  • * Lowell
  • He assigns supremacy to the pope in spirituals, and to the emperor in temporals .

    Etymology 2

    From .

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • of the temples of the head
  • Derived terms
    * temporal bone * temporal lobe

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (skeleton) Either of the bones on the side of the skull, near the ears.
  • Any of a reptile's scales on the side of the head between the parietal and supralabial scales, and behind the postocular scales.