Adjacent Words

Contemporary definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

CONTEMPORARY, a. [L., time. For the sake of easier pronunciation and a ore agreeable sound, this word is often changed to cotemporary.] Coetaneous; living at the same time, applied to persons; being or existing at the same time, applied to things; as contemporary kings; contemporary events. [See Cotemporary, the preferable word.]
CONTEMPORARY, n. One who lives at the same time with another.
Socrates and Plato were contemporaries.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: characteristic of the present; "contemporary trends in design"; "the role of computers in modern-day medicine" [syn: contemporary, modern-day]
2: belonging to the present time; "contemporary leaders" [syn: contemporary, present-day]
3: occurring in the same period of time; "a rise in interest rates is often contemporaneous with an increase in inflation"; "the composer Salieri was contemporary with Mozart" [syn: contemporaneous, contemporary] n
1: a person of nearly the same age as another [syn: contemporary, coeval]

Merriam Webster's

I. adjective Etymology: com- + Latin tempor-, tempus Date: 1631 1. happening, existing, living, or coming into being during the same period of time 2. a. simultaneous b. marked by characteristics of the present period ; modern, current • contemporarily adverb Synonyms: contemporary, contemporaneous, coeval, synchronous, simultaneous, coincident mean existing or occurring at the same time. contemporary is likely to apply to people and what relates to them <Abraham Lincoln was contemporary with Charles Darwin>. contemporaneous is more often applied to events than to people <contemporaneous accounts of the kidnapping>. coeval refers usually to periods, ages, eras, eons <two stars thought to be coeval>. synchronous implies exact correspondence in time and especially in periodic intervals <synchronous timepieces>. simultaneous implies correspondence in a moment of time <the two shots were simultaneous>. coincident is applied to events and may be used in order to avoid implication of causal relationship <the end of World War II was coincident with a great vintage year>. II. noun (plural -raries) Date: 1638 1. one that is contemporary with another 2. one of the same or nearly the same age as another

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. & n. --adj. 1 living or occurring at the same time. 2 approximately equal in age. 3 following modern ideas or fashion in style or design. --n. (pl. -ies) 1 a person or thing living or existing at the same time as another. 2 a person of roughly the same age as another. Derivatives: contemporarily adv. contemporariness n. contemporarize v.tr. (also -ise). Etymology: med.L contemporarius (as contemporaneous)

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Contemporary Con*tem"po*ra*ry, a. [Pref. con- + L. temporarius of belonging to time, tempus time. See Temporal, and cf. Contemporaneous.] 1. Living, occuring, or existing, at the same time; done in, or belonging to, the same times; contemporaneous. This king [Henry VIII.] was contemporary with the greatest monarchs of Europe. --Strype. 2. Of the same age; coeval. A grove born with himself he sees, And loves his old contemporary trees. --Cowley.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Contemporary Con*tem"po*ra*ry, n.; pl. Contemporaries. One who lives at the same time with another; as, Petrarch and Chaucer were contemporaries.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(contemporaries) Frequency: The word is one of the 3000 most common words in English. 1. Contemporary things are modern and relate to the present time. She writes a lot of contemporary music for people like Whitney Houston... Only the names are ancient; the characters are modern and contemporary. ADJ: usu ADJ n 2. Contemporary people or things were alive or happened at the same time as something else you are talking about. ...drawing upon official records and the reports of contemporary witnesses. ADJ: usu ADJ n 3. Someone's contemporary is a person who is or was alive at the same time as them. Like most of my contemporaries, I grew up in a vastly different world. N-COUNT: usu pl, poss N

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

a. Contemporaneous.

Moby Thesaurus

a la mode, abreast, accompanying, actual, advanced, agreeing, as is, associated, attendant, attending, au courant, avant-garde, being, coetaneous, coeternal, coeval, coexistent, coexisting, coincident, coincidental, coinstantaneous, collateral, concomitant, concurrent, connected, contemporaneous, conterminous, coterminous, current, dead heat, draw, existent, existing, extant, far out, fashionable, forward-looking, fresh, immanent, immediate, in, instant, isochronal, isochronous, latest, linked, mod, modern, modernistic, modernized, modish, new, newfangled, newfashioned, novel, now, parallel, present, present-age, present-day, present-time, progressive, red-hot, related, running, simultaneous, streamlined, stylish, synchronal, synchronic, synchronous, that be, that is, tie, topical, trendy, twentieth-century, ultra-ultra, ultramodern, unison, unisonous, up, up-to-date, up-to-datish, up-to-the-minute, way out