transitory

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English transitorie,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Anglo-Norman transitorie and Middle French transitoire,^[5][2] and directly borrowed from Late Latin trānsitōrius (“transient, passing”),^[5][6][7] recorded in the 4th century, in Jerome.^[5] In classical Latin the adjective meant "allowing passage through",^[6][7] and it is formed on trānsitus (“gone across”), the past participle of trānseō (“to go across, pass, pass away”), with the suffix -ōrius.^[5][2] The Anglo-Norman adjective is recorded from the first quarter of the 13th century.^[8] Dictionary.com notes that the Latin-based form replaced transitoire.^[4] Compare Spanish transitorio, Portuguese transitório and Italian transitorio.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Not lasting; passing away: the OED's first record is Chaucer's translation of Boethius, in a manuscript of about 1400 of a text composed about 1380,^[5] and Etymonline dates the word to the late 14th century.^[6] Benson's concordance counts five uses in Chaucer.^[9]

Semantic evolution

The early sense was religious as much as temporal: Old French often used the word of life in this world as against the afterlife,^[5] and Etymonline gives "belonging to the secular world, merely material" as the oldest English sense.^[6] This shaded into the plain sense of something short-lived, which Johnson gave in 1755 as "continuing but a short time; speedily vanishing", quoting Donne.^[10] The older contrast with lasting things was still alive in Hawthorne's "transitory pleasures of the world".^[2] From the late 16th century the word gained a legal use, for an action that can be brought in any court with jurisdiction over the defendant,^[5][11] and for a time it also meant "trifling".^[5][11] As a noun it named a fleeting thing, and in navigation the crosspiece of a cross-staff.^[5][11]

Timeline

• c. 1400 – not lasting, fleeting, in a Chaucer text composed about 1380.^[5]
• before 1500 – noun, a fleeting thing, in a Lydgate text of about 1430.^[5]
• c. 1574 – noun, in navigation, the movable crosspiece of a cross-staff.^[5]
• 1592 – of the nature of a passage; transitional.^[5]
• 1594 – in law, of a lawsuit not tied to one locality.^[5]
• 1637 – trifling, insignificant (obsolete by 1673).^[5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Lasting only a short time; passing away; transient or ephemeral: Their early success proved transitory.^[12][2][5]
2. (rare) Of the nature of a passage or change; transitional.^[5][11]
3. (law) Of a lawsuit, able to be brought in any court with jurisdiction over the defendant, wherever the matter arose.^[5][11]
4. (obsolete, 1637–73) Trifling, of little account.^[5][11]

Noun

1. (rare) A fleeting thing, usually in the plural.^[5][11]
2. (historical) The movable crosspiece of a cross-staff.^[5][11]

Word family

• transitorily
• transitoriness
• untransitory

Related words

• transient
• transit
• transition

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
4. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
9. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b c d e f g h Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins