fleeting
- 01 C1 Advanced
lasting for only a very short time; passing quickly.
passing swiftly; of brief duration or ephemeral nature.
Simple“I caught a fleeting glimpse of the deer before it ran into the woods.”
In context“The politician's popularity proved to be fleeting, evaporating almost entirely once the economic crisis began to affect the average voter.”
UsageCommonly collocates with nouns like 'glimpse', 'moment', 'visit', or 'thought'.
Teacher's tipWhile neutral, this word often carries a slightly poetic or literary tone; students should use it to describe things that are naturally short-lived, like emotions or sights.
“It presents the emotion as mysterious and fleeting; Ocean’s voice is racked, the melody haunting.”
“It’s comforting that the negative body image and the tiredness, bloating and other symptoms that come with the luteal phase can be fleeting.”
From Middle English fleten (“to float”), from Old English flēotan (“to float”), from Proto-Germanic fleutaną, from Proto-Indo-European plewd-. By surface analysis, fleet + -ing.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.