Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A fever which lasts but a day or a very short period.
  • noun [capitalized] [NL.] In entomology, the typical genus of May-flies or day-flies of the family Ephemeridæ, having three long caudal filaments.
  • noun A May-fly, day-fly, or shad-fly; an ephemerid. See Ephemeridæ and May-fly.
  • noun Anything very short-lived.
  • noun Plural of ephemeron.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Med.) A fever of one day's continuance only.
  • noun (Zoöl.) A genus of insects including the day flies, or ephemeral flies. See Ephemeral fly, under Ephemeral.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Plural form of ephemeron.
  • noun transitory things
  • noun publications that are designed to be short-lived

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun something transitory; lasting a day

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Man, the latest of the ephemera, is pitifully a creature of temperature, strutting his brief day on the thermometer.

    THE HUMAN DRIFT 2010

  • Specialty dealers David Margolis and Jean Moss from Santa Fe, NM, specialists in ephemera, photography, and fine books; and, Terry Belanger, 2005 MacArthur Fellow, and founder of Rare Book School, University of Virginia.

    Archive 2008-01-01 2008

  • Talk about ephemera from the past … a recent eBay purchase arrived stored in this ancient looking plastic bag:

    2008 February : Scrubbles.net 2008

  • Talk about ephemera from the past … a recent eBay purchase arrived stored in this ancient looking plastic bag:

    Freshness & Quality : Scrubbles.net 2008

  • So, any ephemera from the creation of that story about cranky old Hagar comprise the literary world's version of splinters from the cross.

    CanLit 2006

  • The site is described as a comprehensive collection of newpaper articles, cemetery ledgers, photos, personal correspondence, obituaries and other ephemera from the Woodgate/White Lake area.

    Creating, Managing & Pres. Dig. Assets: Woodgate Digitization Project 2006

  • The Woodgate Digitization Project is, as the site states, a "comprehensive collection of newpaper articles, cemetery ledgers, photos, personal correspondence, obituaries and other ephemera from the Woodgate/White Lake area."

    Archive 2006-02-01 2006

  • The Woodgate Digitization Project is, as the site states, a "comprehensive collection of newpaper articles, cemetery ledgers, photos, personal correspondence, obituaries and other ephemera from the Woodgate/White Lake area."

    Creating, Managing & Pres. Dig. Assets: Mid-York Digitization Projects 2006

  • So, any ephemera from the creation of that story about cranky old Hagar comprise the literary world's version of splinters from the cross.

    52 entries from July 2006 2006

  • So, any ephemera from the creation of that story about cranky old Hagar comprise the literary world's version of splinters from the cross.

    CanLit 2006

Comments

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  • In book/print collecting, items designed to be useful or important for only a short time. Examples: pamphlets, notices, broadsides.

    February 20, 2007