temporal
/ˈtɛm.pə.ɹəl/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.63 in modern English
12
Scrabble Score
8
Letters
3
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Anything temporal or secular; a temporality.
Example Sentences
- "temporal power, temporal courts"
- "The Right Honourable the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled"
- "The [papal] train was in use until 1871, when the Pope [Pius IX] lost his temporal power."
- "Not long before, he had ruefully acknowledged in a letter to his pious mother that most of his appointments to the bench of bishops had been motivated by distinctly temporal impulses."
- "The things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal."
- "for God's people love always to be dealing as well in temporals as spirituals"
Etymology
From Middle English temporal, temporel (“transitory, worldly, material, of secular society”), from Old French temporel or Latin temporālis (“of time (in grammar), temporary, relating to time as opposed to eternity”), from tempus (“time, period, opportunity”) + -ālis.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *temh₁-, temporal, temporel, temporel, temporālis, -, timporal, temporal