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contemporary

American  

[kuhn-tem-puh-rer-ee] / kənˈtɛm pəˌrɛr i /

adjective

1. existing, occurring, or living at the same time; belonging to the same time.

   Newton's discovery of the calculus was contemporary with that of Leibniz.

   Synonyms:

   simultaneous, concurrent, coexistent

2. of about the same age or date.

   a Georgian table with a contemporary wig stand.

3. of the present time; modern.

   a lecture on the contemporary novel.

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noun

• contemporaries
  plural

1. a person belonging to the same time or period with another or others.

2. a person of the same age as another.

contemporary British  

/ kənˈtɛmprərɪ /

adjective

1. belonging to the same age; living or occurring in the same period of time

2. existing or occurring at the present time

3. conforming to modern or current ideas in style, fashion, design, etc

4. having approximately the same age as one another

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noun

1. a person living at the same time or of approximately the same age as another

2. something that is contemporary

3. journalism a rival newspaper

Usage

Since contemporary can mean either of the same period or of the present period, it is best to avoid this word where ambiguity might arise, as in a production of Othello in contemporary dress. Modern dress or Elizabethan dress should be used in this example to avoid ambiguity

Synonym Usage

Contemporary, contemporaneous, coeval, coincident all mean happening or existing at the same time. Contemporary often refers to persons or their acts or achievements: Hemingway and Fitzgerald, though contemporary, shared few values. Contemporaneous is applied chiefly to events: the rise of industrialism, contemporaneous with the spread of steam power. Coeval refers either to very long periods of time—an era or an eon—or to remote or long ago times: coeval stars, shining for millenia with equal brilliance; coeval with the dawning of civilization. Coincident means occurring at the same time but without causal or other relationships: prohibition, coincident with the beginning of the 1920s.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• contemporariness
  noun
• noncontemporary
  adjective
• postcontemporary
  adjective
• ultracontemporary
  adjective
• uncontemporary
  adjective
• contemporarily
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• contemporaries
  plural

Etymology

Origin of contemporary

First recorded in 1625–35; from Late Latin contemporārius, equivalent to Latin con- con- ( def. ) + tempor- (stem of tempus “time”; cf. temporal ¹ ( def. )) + -ārius -ary ( def. )

Explanation

Things that are contemporary are either happening at the same time or happening now. Contemporary art is recent art. In history class, if you hear that one famous person was a contemporary of another, that means they lived at the same time. Contemporaries are people and things from the same time period. Contemporary can also describe things happening now or recently. It's common to speak of contemporary music or contemporary furniture, for example. Those things are new, not old. Anything characteristic of the present day can be called contemporary.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

contemporary contemporaries

Shakespeare, as his contemporary Ben Jonson noted, had “small Latin and less Greek.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026

“The lesson of history is that alliance systems often prove more resilient in retrospect than contemporary observers expect at the time,” they write.

From Slate ● Oct. 8, 2026

The Nobel Prize committee said they had selected her "for her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature".

From BBC ● Oct. 8, 2026

The point was to come up with something that was emblematic of the city, a piece that would reflect L.A.’s wellspring of creativity in the contemporary art world.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 2, 2026

“First thing I did was brush up on all the contemporary music. It’s so exciting, all the new music.”

From "Americanah" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The primary difference between Hartnett and his contemporaries, though, was that Hartnett could hold his own on screen.

From Salon ● Oct. 9, 2026

When Sheen did encounter diverging opinions, his profound humility and willingness to admit mistakes only increased the respect his contemporaries had for him.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 24, 2026

In truth, other England Under-19 contemporaries caught up while Flintoff struggled for first-team action and fitness.

From BBC ● Aug. 15, 2026

His contemporaries would have been surprised to learn that Romans came to embrace Christianity in the fourth century.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 31, 2026

A notch below six feet four and slightly above two hundred pounds, he was a full head taller than his male contemporaries.

From "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis

Related Words

• new
• present-day