temporarily
Americanadverb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of temporarily
Explanation
Temporarily describes something that happens for a limited amount of time. If you agree to watch your friend's dog temporarily, you'll be surprised if it turns out that your friend will be in France for at least two years. Temporarily is the adverbial form of "temporary," which comes from the Latin word tempus, meaning time. Something done temporarily is supposed to be concluded in a finite amount of time. If your car is temporarily out of commission, you expect that you will be able to fix it and get it back on the road. If you drop the word temporarily from that sentence, your car may be a goner.
Vocabulary lists containing temporarily
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temp
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The Mayor of Casterbridge
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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.
Over 50,000 residents were temporarily evacuated as officials investigated the potential for an explosion for days.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 10, 2026
The company is poised to double its revenue to $10.9 billion in the second quarter, at least temporarily exceeding the hefty cost of training and running its models, The Wall Street Journal has reported.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 9, 2026
Amazon will temporarily lose priority status for its satellites after July 30 until either 20 months have passed or half of its constellation is operational, the agency said.
From MarketWatch • Jun. 9, 2026
Two others -- identified only as Mikheil Z. and Beqa T. -- have already been convicted and imprisoned in other countries for similar crimes and have been temporarily handed over to France.
From Barron's • Jun. 9, 2026
“By the way,” said Dr. Zinchenko, “to make this game more challenging, we have temporarily covered up all the call numbers on the spines of the books in the bins.”
From "Mr. Lemoncello's Library Olympics" by Chris Grabenstein
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.
