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CONTEMPORARY
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A person of nearly the same age as another
Synonyms:
coeval; contemporary
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("contemporary" is a kind of...):
compeer; equal; match; peer (a person who is of equal standing with another in a group)
II. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Belonging to the present time
Example:
contemporary leaders
Synonyms:
contemporary; present-day
Classified under:
Similar:
current (occurring in or belonging to the present time)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Characteristic of the present
Example:
the role of computers in modern-day medicine
Synonyms:
contemporary; modern-day
Classified under:
Similar:
modern (belonging to the modern era; since the Middle Ages)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Occurring in the same period of time
Example:
the composer Salieri was contemporary with Mozart
Synonyms:
contemporaneous; contemporary
Classified under:
Similar:
synchronal; synchronic; synchronous (occurring or existing at the same time or having the same period or phase)
Context examples:
While the effects of volcanic heat on the Antarctic ice sheets is an active topic of research, this study provides the first geochemical evidence of a contemporary volcanic heat source, emphasizing the need to detect and understand volcanism, including in models of ice-sheet behavior.
(Previously unsuspected volcanic activity confirmed under West Antarctic Ice Sheet at Pine Island Glacier, National Science Foundation)
They are indeed, as he has said, our ancestors, but they are, if I may use the expression, our contemporary ancestors, who can still be found with all their hideous and formidable characteristics if one has but the energy and hardihood to seek their haunts.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Scientists found the Ancient North Siberians generated the mosaic genetic make-up of contemporary people who inhabit a vast area across northern Eurasia and the Americas – providing the ‘missing link’ of understanding the genetics of Native American ancestry.
(DNA from 31,000-year-old milk teeth leads to discovery of new group of ancient Siberians, University of Cambridge)
DNA was extracted from walrus sites and archaeological excavations of walrus samples and compared with data from contemporary walruses, documenting that the Icelandic walrus constituted a genetically unique lineage, distinct from all other historic and contemporary walrus populations in the North Atlantic.
(Extinction of Icelandic walrus coincides with Norse settlement, National Science Foundation)
Instead of lurking on the seafloor and ambushing prey, as many of its contemporaries did, Gladbachus may have been one of the first vertebrates to live in the water column — the space between the ocean's surface and bottom — where anchovies, sardines and herring make their home today.
(Ancient sharks likely more diverse than previously thought, National Science Foundation)
The researchers examined contemporary written sources, inscriptions, coinage, papyrus documents, pollen samples, plague genomes and mortuary archaeology.
(Justinianic plague not a landmark pandemic?, National Science Foundation)
And yet his work stands out from the ruck of the contemporary versifiers as a balas ruby among carrots.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
In a new study, researchers analyzed ancient and contemporary DNA along with carbon-14 dating of walrus remains, supplemented with detailed studies of the remains' locations, place names and references to walrus-hunting in Icelandic Medieval literature, including the Icelandic Sagas.
(Extinction of Icelandic walrus coincides with Norse settlement, National Science Foundation)
I have alluded to him, Reader, because I think I see in him an intellect profounder and more unique than his contemporaries have yet recognised; because I regard him as the first social regenerator of the day—as the very master of that working corps who would restore to rectitude the warped system of things; because I think no commentator on his writings has yet found the comparison that suits him, the terms which rightly characterise his talent.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
Contemporary legends such as the underground pipe-line to Canada attached themselves to him, and there was one persistent story that he didn't live in a house at all, but in a boat that looked like a house and was moved secretly up and down the Long Island shore.
(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)
