fugacious

American  

[fyoo-gey-shuhs] / fyuˈgeɪ ʃəs /

adjective

1. fleeting; transient.

   a sensational story with but a fugacious claim on the public's attention.

2. Botany. falling or fading early.

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fugacious British  

/ fjuːˈɡeɪʃəs /

adjective

1. passing quickly away; transitory; fleeting

2. botany lasting for only a short time

   fugacious petals

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Other Word Forms

• fugaciously adverb
• fugaciousness noun
• fugacity noun

Etymology

Origin of fugacious

1625–35; < Latin fugāci- (stem of fugāx apt to flee, fleet, derivative of fugere to flee + -ous

Example Sentences

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

Style undivided or 2-parted, filiform; ovule pendulous; fruit an achene, embryo curved.—Trees or shrubs, with milky juice, alternate leaves, and fugacious stipules.

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 Gray, Asa

Sporangia fasciculate, confluent on a persistent hypothallus, dark fuscous; peridia very fugacious; stipes united at the base, erect, furcate; spores large, brown, globose.

From The North American Slime-Moulds A Descriptive List of All Species of Myxomycetes Hitherto Reported from the Continent of North America, with Notes on Some Extra-Limital Species by MacBride, Thomas H. (Thomas Huston)

P. unequal, yellowish white, with paler large woolly floccose scales when dry; g. striato-decur. crenulate, broad, umber at last; s. solid, narrowed upwards, white-scaly, base swollen and rooting, ring fugacious; sp. 8-9 � 5-6.

From European Fungus Flora: Agaricaceae by Massee, George

Eheu! fugaces anni is a sigh that even the Latin primer teaches us; and though in schoolbook days calling the years fugacious seems absurd, we catch the meaning as they glide away.

From The Galaxy Vol. 23, No. 1 by Various