ephemera
Americannoun
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a mayfly, esp one of the genus Ephemera
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something transitory or short-lived
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(functioning as plural) a class of collectable items not originally intended to last for more than a short time, such as tickets, posters, postcards, or labels
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a plural of ephemeron
Etymology
Origin of ephemera
1670–80; < Greek ephḗmera, neuter plural of ephḗmeros, taken as singular; ephemeral
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.
Games back then were rapt-audience monuments, not ephemera to glance at while futzing around group texts and prediction market apps.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 30, 2026
It’s clear that “Forbidden Fruits” director and co-writer Meredith Alloway has marinated in plenty of ’90s teen movies and the kitschy pop-culture ephemera of that era.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 26, 2026
Contemporaries were convinced that his motivation for publishing Mansfield’s ephemera wasn’t so much reverence for her talent as greed for hard cash.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 30, 2026
Ours is an era when every shred of ephemera is for sale, so why wouldn’t a mourning son attempt to liquidate a killer’s personal effects to claim compensation for his mother’s death?
From Salon • Oct. 29, 2025
Would the insect philosopher's dogmatism be one whit less absurd than that of those human ephemera who so positively lay down the law about the clockwork of the universe?
From Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics With Some of Their Applications by Thornton, William Thomas
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.
