adjective
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passing quickly away; transitory; fleeting
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botany lasting for only a short time
fugacious petals
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of fugacious
1625–35; < Latin fugāci- (stem of fugāx apt to flee, fleet, derivative of fugere to flee + -ous
Explanation
Something that's fugacious lasts a very short time. You say you'll wear your trendy new jeans for years but the truth is, their style is so fugacious you'll feel silly in them long before they wear out. When you describe something that passes quickly, or that's ephemeral and fleeting, you can use the adjective fugacious. When you live in Maine, the summer seems fugacious, and after looking forward all year to your senior prom, you'll find the night so fugacious that it seems to last only an hour. The origin can be traced back to the Latin word fugax, which means "apt to flee, or timid."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The Reporter, on the other hand, calls it "a fugacious bit of whimsy that can only be judged minor Woody Allen".
From The Guardian ● Jul. 18, 2014
P. 5-9 cm. oblique or subcircular, hard, whitish with brownish spot-like squamules, flesh white then yellowish; g. decur. not anastomosing behind, white tinged yellow; s. 2-3 cm. sublateral, ring fugacious, torn; sp.
From European Fungus Flora: Agaricaceae by George Massee
P. 1.5-2.5 cm. campan. exp. glabrous, rather viscid, hygr. cinnamon then ochre; g. adnate, edge entire, whitish; s. 3-5 cm. equal, yellowish fuscous, striate with adpr. fibrils, almost glabrous, veil fugacious; sp.
From European Fungus Flora: Agaricaceae by George Massee
Flowers perfect, regular or somewhat irregular, with 3 more or less herbaceous persistent sepals and 3 fugacious petals.
From The Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States Including the District East of the Mississippi and North of North Carolina and Tennessee by Asa Gray
Spikelet more or less flattened, thicker than the slender or capillary culm, few–many-flowered; the thin membranaceous scales somewhat 2–3-ranked; style 3-cleft; bristles of the perianth 3–6, fragile or fugacious.
From The Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States Including the District East of the Mississippi and North of North Carolina and Tennessee by Asa Gray
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
