Fugacious

Part of speech: adjective

Pronunciation: /fjuːˈɡeɪ.ʃəs/

Definitions

1. Lasting only a short time; tending to fade, disappear, or vanish quickly
2. Tending to disappear or fade away with remarkable speed or brevity
3. Characterized by swift disappearance or evanescence, lasting only momentarily before vanishing

Etymology: "Fugacious" reaches English from Latin "fugāx," meaning "fleeting" or "transitory," which itself grows from "fugiō," "to flee." The Latin root therefore carries the sense of something that slips away before you can hold it, and the English adjective keeps that picture intact. The "-acious" ending in English comes from the Latin "-ax" family of suffixes, the same ending found in words like "tenacious" and "audacious," which describe qualities or tendencies. The English word is a borrowing rather than a native formation, so it arrived as a learned term from Latin scholarship and was used in formal and literary writing. The Latin comparative "fugācius" appears in the chain of formation, which tells us that Latin speakers already had ways to grade the degree of fleetingness, though English adopted the adjective in its positive form.

Synonyms: fleeting, transient, ephemeral

Antonyms: perpetual, everlasting, perennial