adj, noun ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   One serving for a limited time; a short-term employee, especially in an office.
2. 2
   a worker (especially in an office) hired on a temporary basis wordnet
3. 3
   A short-term variable used to store an intermediate result.

Adjective

1. 1
   Not permanent; existing only for a period or periods of time.

   "Sally was put in temporary charge of the department while they searched for a full-time replacement."

2. 2
   Existing only for a short time or short times; transient, ephemeral.

Adjective

1. 1
   lacking continuity or regularity wordnet
2. 2
   not permanent; not lasting wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

tempimpermanenttempactingad hocad interim

Antonyms

All antonyms

eternalevanescentinveteratepermanent

Example

More examples

"I made a temporary repair to the broken door."

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin temporarius, from tempus (“time”).

Related phrases

temporary gentlemantemporary helptemporary restraining ordertemporary tooththere is nothing more permanent than a temporary solution

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.