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Traditional vs Contemporary - What's the difference?

traditional | contemporary |

As adjectives the difference between traditional and contemporary

is that traditional is of or pertaining to tradition; derived from tradition; communicated from ancestors to descendants by word only; transmitted from age to age without writing; as, traditional opinions; traditional customs; traditional expositions of the scriptures while contemporary is from the same time period, coexistent in time.

As a noun contemporary is

someone or something living at the same time, or of roughly the same age as another.

traditional

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Of or pertaining to tradition; derived from tradition; communicated from ancestors to descendants by word only; transmitted from age to age without writing; as, traditional opinions; traditional customs; traditional expositions of the Scriptures.
    • I think her traditional values are antiquated .
  • Observant of tradition; attached to old customs; old-fashioned.
  • In lieu of the name of the composer of a piece of music, whose real name is lost in the mists of time.

    • Antonyms

    * nontraditional, non-traditional * untraditional

    Derived terms

    * traditionally

    Related terms

    * tradition

    contemporary

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • From the same time period, coexistent in time.
  • * Cowley
    • A grove born with himself he sees, / And loves his old contemporary trees.
  • * Strype
    • This king was contemporary with the greatest monarchs of Europe.
  • Modern, of the present age.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2012-01
    • , author=Robert L. Dorit , title=Rereading Darwin , volume=100, issue=1, page=23 , magazine= citation , passage=We live our lives in three dimensions for our threescore and ten allotted years. Yet every branch of contemporary science, from statistics to cosmology, alludes to processes that operate on scales outside of human experience: the millisecond and the nanometer, the eon and the light-year.}}
  • * {{quote-news
    • , year=2012 , date=May 24 , author=Nathan Rabin , title=Film: Reviews: Men In Black 3 , work=The Onion AV Club citation , page= , passage=Men In Black 3 finagles its way out of this predicament by literally resetting the clock with a time-travel premise that makes Will Smith both a contemporary intergalactic cop in the late 1960s and a stranger to Josh Brolin, who plays the younger version of Smith’s stone-faced future partner, Tommy Lee Jones.}}
  • Relatively recent

    • Synonyms

    * contemporaneous

    Antonyms

    * anachronistic: in the wrong time period * archaic

    Noun

    (contemporaries)
  • Someone or something living at the same time, or of roughly the same age as another.
    • ''Cervantes was a contemporary of Shakespeare.
    ''The early mammals inherited the earth by surviving their saurian contemporaries .
  • Something existing at the same time.

    • External links

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