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MOMENTARY
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I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Lasting for a markedly brief time
Example:
a momentary glimpse
Synonyms:
fleeting; fugitive; momentaneous; momentary
Classified under:
Similar:
short (primarily temporal sense; indicating or being or seeming to be limited in duration)
Derivation:
moment (an indefinitely short time)
Context examples:
Jo's upset the cake again! caused a momentary flurry, which was hardly over when a flock of cousins arrived, and 'the party came in', as Beth used to say when a child.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
He had a right, of course, to do as he pleased: and yet a momentary damp is cast on the spirits by the receipt of such news.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
My change of manner surprised and pleased the magistrate; perhaps he thought that my former exclamation was a momentary return of delirium, and now he instantly resumed his former benevolence.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
He experienced a momentary pang of shame that he should walk so uncouthly.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
After a momentary struggle with myself, I turned my eyes upon him, and said, “You have heard my question. Consider it addressed to yourself, if you choose. What answer do you make?”
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
This startled me, but as the effect was only momentary, I took it that my eyes deceived me straining through the darkness.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
The seizure seen in absence epilepsy, consisting of a sudden momentary break in consciousness of thought or activity, often accompanied by automatisms or clonic movements, especially of the eyelids.
(Petit Mal Seizure, Food and Drug Administration)
Presuming however, that this studied avoidance spoke rather a momentary embarrassment than any dislike of the proposal, and seeing in her husband, who was fond of society, a perfect willingness to accept it, she ventured to engage for her attendance, and the day after the next was fixed on.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
The act of closure or the state of being closed; an obstruction; the relationship between all of the components of the masticatory system in normal function, dysfunction, and parafunction; momentary complete closure of some area in the vocal tract, causing stoppage of the breath and accumulation of pressure.
(Occlusion, Food and Drug Administration)
However, exomoons are harder to detect than exoplanets because they are smaller than their companion planet, and so their transit signal is weaker when plotted on a light curve that measures the duration of the planet crossing and the amount of momentary dimming.
(Astronomers Find First Evidence of Possible Moon Outside Our Solar System, NASA)
