Meaning & use
evanescent
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Meanings
adjectivecomparableliterary
Lasting for a very short time and soon fading or vanishing from sight or memory.
Grammar: Can come before a noun or after be: an evanescent glow, the joy was evanescent.
Patterns
- an evanescent something
The evanescent glow of the sunset faded within minutes.
Fame can be evanescent, gone as quickly as it arrived.
She chased the evanescent memory of a childhood song.
adjectivecomparableliterary
Slight, delicate or hard to grasp, as if it might disappear at any moment.
Grammar: Often describes beauty, mood or quality: an evanescent smile.
Patterns
- evanescent beauty
A faint, evanescent smile crossed his face.
The poem captures the evanescent beauty of spring.
The perfume left an evanescent trace in the air.
Common combinations
- evanescent beauty
- The garden has an evanescent beauty in early dawn.
- evanescent glow
- Fireflies cast an evanescent glow over the field.
- evanescent moment
- He tried to hold on to the evanescent moment.
- evanescent smile
- An evanescent smile touched her lips.
- evanescent joy
- The evanescent joy of winning soon passed.
Synonyms and how they differ
- fleeting
- Fleeting is a common everyday word, whereas evanescent is more poetic and suggests slowly fading.
- ephemeral
- Ephemeral often describes things that last a day or so by nature, while evanescent stresses the act of vanishing.
- transient
- Transient is neutral and often used for people or conditions, with less lyrical feeling than evanescent.
- fugitive
- Fugitive in this sense is rare and literary, describing something that slips away.
Opposites
Word family
- evanescence noun
- the quality of fading away quickly
- evanesce verb
- to fade away, rare
- evanescently adverb
- in a fading way
- evanescence noun
- also the name of a rock band
Commonly confused: evanescent or effervescent? evanescent or evanescent vs evasive?
evanescent vs effervescent
Effervescent means bubbly and lively, not fading, though both are lively sounding words.
evanescent vs evanescent vs evasive
Evasive means avoiding a question, which is unrelated to fading away.
Practice
The rainbow was so ___ that by the time I found my camera it had faded.
Choose one answer.
Evanescent means quickly vanishing, which suits a rainbow that fades. Effervescent means bubbly, and permanent would contradict the sentence.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “evanescent”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.