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PRESENT MOMENT
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
At this time
Example:
she is studying at the moment
Synonyms:
here and now; moment; present moment
Classified under:
Nouns denoting time and temporal relations
Hypernyms ("present moment" is a kind of...):
nowadays; present (the period of time that is happening now; any continuous stretch of time including the moment of speech)
Context examples:
And there, as they slowly paced the gradual ascent, heedless of every group around them, seeing neither sauntering politicians, bustling housekeepers, flirting girls, nor nursery-maids and children, they could indulge in those retrospections and acknowledgements, and especially in those explanations of what had directly preceded the present moment, which were so poignant and so ceaseless in interest.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
Mr. Bhaer's face had lost the absent-minded expression, and looked all alive with interest in the present moment, actually young and handsome, she thought, forgetting to compare him with Laurie, as she usually did strange men, to their great detriment.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
For, hark ye: granting, propter argumentum, that I am a talker, then the true reasoning runs that since all men of sense should avoid me, and thou hast not avoided me, but art at the present moment eating herrings with me under a holly-bush, ergo you are no man of sense, which is exactly what I have been dinning into your long ears ever since I first clapped eyes on your sunken chops.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
You were wearing, I may remark, the same pair of ribbed tennis shoes which are at the present moment upon your feet.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Mr. Micawber, at the then present moment, took a pull at his punch.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
He went for a fortnight—a fortnight of such dullness to the Miss Bertrams as ought to have put them both on their guard, and made even Julia admit, in her jealousy of her sister, the absolute necessity of distrusting his attentions, and wishing him not to return; and a fortnight of sufficient leisure, in the intervals of shooting and sleeping, to have convinced the gentleman that he ought to keep longer away, had he been more in the habit of examining his own motives, and of reflecting to what the indulgence of his idle vanity was tending; but, thoughtless and selfish from prosperity and bad example, he would not look beyond the present moment.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
At the present moment I lie abed (having stayed late in order to pay a compliment to the Marchioness of Dover at her ball last night), and this is writ to my dictation by Ambrose, my clever rascal of a valet.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
In all England there can be no man who sets less value upon his own life than I do at the present moment.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
I am very umble to the present moment, Master Copperfield, but I've got a little power!”
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Without Doctor Johnson, or somebody of that sort, we might have been at this present moment calling an Italian-iron, a bedstead.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
