Recency

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈɹiːsənsi/

Definitions

1. The quality or state of having occurred or been created not long ago
2. Being marked by a short time span between occurrence and the present moment
3. The characteristic of something that is fresh, newly happened, or just past in time

Etymology: "Recency" is a plain borrowing rather than a story of shifting meaning. It comes from Latin "recentia", which is formed from "recens" (fresh, new, recent) with a suffix that turns an adjective into a noun of quality, the same pattern behind words like "fluency" and "clemency". The English noun's sense of closeness in time follows directly from the adjective "recent", which it carries with it. The word has a twin in "recent" itself, which came into English from the same Latin root, so the adjective and noun are two forms of one stem. The pattern is simple: the adjective describes something close in time, and the noun names that closeness as a quality that can be measured or compared.

Synonyms: newness, freshness, recentness

Antonyms: oldness, antiquity