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Webster 1913 Edition


Fugacious

Fu-ga′cious

,
Adj.
[L.
fugax
,
fugacis
, from
fugere
: cf. F.
fugace
. See
Fugitive
.]
1.
Flying, or disposed to fly; fleeing away; lasting but a short time; volatile.
Much of its possessions is so hid, so fugacious, and of so uncertain purchase.
Jer. Taylor.
2.
(Biol.)
Fleeting; lasting but a short time; – applied particularly to organs or parts which are short-lived as compared with the life of the individual.

Webster 1828 Edition


Fugacious

FUGA'CIOUS

,
Adj.
[L. fugax, from fugo, to chase, or fugio, to flee.] Flying or fleeing away; volatile.

Definition 2024


fugacious

fugacious

English

Adjective

fugacious (comparative more fugacious, superlative most fugacious)

  1. Fleeting, fading quickly, transient.
    • 1906, O. Henry, "The Furnished Room", in The Four Million:
      Restless, shifting, fugacious as time itself is a certain vast bulk of the population of the red brick district of the lower West Side. Homeless, they have a hundred homes.
    • 1916, George Edmund De Schweinitz, Diseases of the Eye, page 589:
      Watering of the eye, conjunctival congestion, distinct catarrhal conjunctivitis, and deep-seated scleral congestions, sometimes fugacious, and often accompanied by intense headache []
    • 2011, Michael Feeney Callan, Robert Redford: The Biography, Alfred A. Knopf (2011), ISBN 9780307272973, page xvii:
      It may be that Redford's fugacious nature is not so mysterious, that it is studded in the artwork of the labs and the very stones of Sundance.

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