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; see ephemeral
Explanation
Ephemera don't stick around for very long. You might enjoy such ephemera as sunsets and rainbows, things appearing only briefly, and so enjoyed all the more. In Latin, ephemera was a word for a fever that didn't last long. Today, ephemera is the plural form of ephemeron, which means "something impermanent or lasting only a short time." French historian Fernand Braudel referred to events as “the ephemera of history,” likening them to fireflies that light the dark for just a moment.
Vocabulary lists containing ephemera
This Week in Words: November 24 - 30, 2018
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The Cuckoo's Calling
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This Week In Culture: December 28, 2019–January 3, 2020
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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.
If anything proves the market value of seemingly worthless ephemera, Walker added, it’s fans clawing for printed set lists at the end of a concert.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 2, 2026
Among the oil paintings, art deco ephemera and geological artifacts, I wasn’t expecting a preserved memorial from the days following the 2015 terrorist attacks, and it leveled me.
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 14, 2026
How well can you recall the past 250 years of books, music, movies and other cultural ephemera that makes up our country?
From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 28, 2026
Stomach gnawing and hands slightly shaky, I loaded up on ephemera for fancy paninis, held together with swipes of giardiniera mayo, and splurged on some pastel-hued botanical sodas for drinking straight from the can.
From Salon • Jan. 1, 2026
It was her novelty which had principally charmed him, but novelty is the butterfly of the sensations—the most brilliant, the shortest-lived of these emotional ephemera.
From The Transgression of Andrew Vane a novel by Carryl, Guy Wetmore
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.
