Make Your Point > Archived Issues > FUGACIOUS
Fugit inreparabile tempus. That is, "it escapes, irretrievable time." Or, more casually, tempus fugit: "time flies."
For describing time that flies, or anything else that disappears quickly, we have the heavy, poetic, formal word fugacious.
Fugacious means "fleeing, fleeting: swiftly disappearing," and it comes from a Latin word for "flee, fly, or run away," which explains why it looks like fugitive, refuge, subterfuge (literally "a fleeing beneath") and centrifugal (literally "fleeing from the center").
See if you can recall these synonyms of fugacious:
1. Something e__e_e_al lasts for only a day, or for only a short time.
2. Something tra__i_o__, OR tra__ie_t, stays or lasts for a short time only.
"FUGACIOUS"
Fugacious things disappear quickly. They last for only a short time, as if they're eager to flee or fly away.
few GAY shuss
(Adjectives are describing words, like "large" or "late."
1. Right before a noun, as in "a fugacious thing."
2. After a linking verb, as in "It was fugacious.")
fugacity/fugaciousness, fugaciously
This is a rare, formal word, so use it to be serious or mock-serious.
If you study plants or animals, you might talk about fugacious flowers and their fugacious bits--fugacious anthers, for example. If you study chromatology, you might talk about fugacious colors and pigments. If you're a chemist, you might talk about the fugacity of certain gases, but I won't even try to explain why or how!
As for the rest of us, we'll talk about fugacious time and years; fugacious lives and life; and fugacious feelings, memories, thoughts, ideas, and words.
Alcohol might soothe us, but that power is fugacious.
"Nobody, it appeared, was alert enough to espy that fugacious shadow on the fire-ladder. And in less than a brace of minutes P. Sybarite, at the top, was pulling himself gingerly over the lip of a stone coping."
—Louis Joseph Vance, The Day of Days, 1913
Look away from the screen to define "fugacious" without saying "fleeting" or "evanescent."
Think of something ridiculous you used to really want. Fill in the blanks: "(At a particular time in the past), I was gripped by a profound yet fugacious desire to _____."
Example: "After reading Judy Blume's Blubber at age ten or so, I was gripped by a profound yet fugacious desire to become a flenser."
Last month, we played "Sleek Slogans." I took a familiar slogan from a company or a product, expressed that slogan in plain language, and told you the specific qualities the slogan has (like rhyme or alliteration), and then you came up with the real slogan as well as the name of the company or product.
From the previous issue: Rewrite this slogan by using pathos (an appeal to the emotions) and antithesis (the side-by-side placement of contrasting ideas): "Our company would like to remind you of the invaluable immaterial things in life, like your love for and devotion to your family. However, in total opposition to that idea, you can use our service to buy all the material things you need."
Answer: That's a slogan for MasterCard: "There are some things money can't buy. For everything else, there's MasterCard."
Next, a new game for August: Apt Adjective Anagrams!
I'll invent a person's name and a brief description of that person, and you unscramble the letters in the name to form an adjective that aptly describes the person or the person's situation.
For example, if I say "Naomi Cirous is still holding a grudge," then you rearrange the letters in "Naomi Cirous" to form the adjective "acrimonious," meaning "sharp, bitter, and mean"--an appropriate adjective for someone holding a grudge.
Try this today: Michaela Alvin will do anything to claw her way to the top of the company.
1. One opposite of FUGACIOUS is
A. LAW-ABIDING.
B. PERMANENT.
C. RELIABLE.
2. Sometimes it's the fugacity of Facebook posts that rankles us: why should it be broadcasted when someone we know _____?
A. is grabbing her morning coffee
B. is having a serious fight with her boyfriend
C. has enrolled in night classes to further her career