as in shortness
the state or quality of lasting only for a short time the transience of spring in northern climates means residents get to enjoy temperate weather only briefly before the heat and humidity of summer set in

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of transience Door-to-door efforts are stymied by cultural barriers, unfounded stories about vaccines, and the region’s poverty and transience. CNN Money, 5 Aug. 2025 Davis arrived in September 2023 to the same sense of transience as Watford. Jacob Tanswell, New York Times, 31 July 2025 In the 21st century, an array of avant-garde fashion designers have been drawn to the beauty and ephemerality of glass, which serves as a meta commentary on the transience of fashion—and life itself. Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell, Smithsonian Magazine, 22 July 2025 Taken together, the idea is to accept and celebrate imperfection and transience. AFAR Media, 10 July 2025 See All Example Sentences for transience
Recent Examples of Synonyms for transience
Noun
  • Luzzatto said the relative shortness of that term is scaring away capital.
    Matthew Geiger, Denver Post, 19 Sep. 2025
Noun
  • The genre invites focus and contemplation, and its structure is balanced with improvisation, which creates a sense of flow and impermanence.
    Anna Haines, Forbes.com, 11 Sep. 2025
  • With Ryan O’Neal as the conniving fool who social-climbs and lies his way through war and peace, Kubrick matches perfectly paced, often-hilarious satire with a sanguine view of human selfishness and impermanence.
    Christina Newland, Vulture, 5 Sep. 2025
Noun
  • But transiency in the back of the bullpen extends well beyond Woodward’s arrival.
    Dallas News, Dallas News, 27 July 2022
  • The council will hold a workshop outlining strategies and efforts to remedy homelessness and transiency in the city.
    Laura Groch, San Diego Union-Tribune, 28 Feb. 2021
Noun
  • The show reflects on the ephemerality of cultural memory.
    Douglas Markowitz, Miami Herald, 5 Sep. 2025
  • The actor, who died on Aug. 17 at 87, was the very pulse of the Swinging Sixties: a working-class kid who became a cultural icon, only to defy the ephemerality of fame with a career that spanned six decades, morphing from heartthrob to one of the most versatile character actors of his time.
    Daniel Ross Goodman, The Washington Examiner, 22 Aug. 2025
Noun
  • To explain why a gag is funny is to crush its soufflé evanescence.
    Stephanie Zacharek, TIME, 19 Mar. 2025
  • The Stranger with its exploration of another facet of exile and belonging, this time set on a flood-prone German island that exists in a perpetual struggle between evanescence and permanence.
    Jay D. Weissberg, Deadline, 19 Feb. 2025

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Cite this Entry

“Transience.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/transience. Accessed 21 Sep. 2025.

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