contemporary
/kənˈtɛm.pəˌɹɛɹ.i/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: 4.49 in modern English
21
Scrabble Score
12
Letters
5
Syllables
10
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
From the same time period, coexistent in time; contemporaneous.
noun
Someone or something belonging to the same time period (as someone or something else)
Example Sentences
- "A neighb'ring Wood born with himself he sees, / And loves his old contemporary trees."
- "As this King [Henry VIII] vvas contemporary vvith the greateſt Monarchs of Europe, viz. the Emperor, the Kings of Spain and France, ſo he vvas engaged in many VVars, and in divers Leagues and Pacifications vvith them or either of them; for the better conſulting the Peace of Mankind."
- "We live our lives in three dimensions for our threescore and ten allotted years. Yet every branch of contemporary science, from statistics to cosmology, alludes to processes that operate on scales outside of human experience: the millisecond and the nanometer, the eon and the light-year."
- "Men In Black 3 finagles its way out of this predicament by literally resetting the clock with a time-travel premise that makes Will Smith both a contemporary intergalactic cop in the late 1960s and a stranger to Josh Brolin, who plays the younger version of Smith’s stone-faced future partner, Tommy Lee Jones."
- "Cervantes was a contemporary of Shakespeare."
- "The early mammals inherited the earth by surviving their saurian contemporaries."
Etymology
From Medieval Latin contemporārius, from Latin con- (“with, together”) + temporārius, an adjective derived from tempus (“time”).
Origin
- Source language: Latin
Word Breakdown
- Root: contemporārius, con-
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /kənˈtɛm.pəˌɹɛɹ.i/
- British English: /kənˈtɛm.p(ə.)ɹə.ɹi/