20 English Words for Time and Duration Beyond Quick or Slow
Moments slip past under vague labels like quick or long, yet English holds precise adjectives for every passage of time. Transitory captures a briefness that fleeting barely suggests, while prolonged marks a duration drawn out to tedious lengths. Impending gives weight to an event hovering just ahead in the hours to come.
Every word on this list can be added to Memorabit, which sends it as a reminder at an unexpected moment of the day. The full list of twenty time adjectives follows below.
| Word | Definition | Example |
|---|---|---|
| timeless | unaffected by time | This song is timeless.Tatoeba #10338293 by Hybrid |
| transitory | lasting a very short time | The woman is the most perfect of creatures; she's a transitory creature between man and angel.Tatoeba #1781211 by Scott |
| prolonged | relatively long in duration; tediously protracted | A prolonged silence followed.Tatoeba #732425 by Zifre |
| infinite | having no limits or boundaries in time or space or extent or magnitude | Is the cosmos infinite?Tatoeba #4806589 by Objectivesea |
| prompt | according to schedule or without delay; on time | You can use this prompt.Tatoeba #12635477 by GemMonkey |
| intervening | occurring or falling between events or points in time | Well, why is he intervening?Tatoeba #9726706 by ariarin |
| occasional | occurring from time to time | There was occasional laughter.Tatoeba #5731967 by CM |
| longtime | having existed or persisted or continued in a particular role or state for a long time | I met a longtime friend that way.Tatoeba #9086066 by shekitten |
| expired | having come to an end or become void after passage of a period of time | My visa has expired.Tatoeba #6273851 by CK |
| impending | close in time; about to occur | I have a sense of impending danger.Tatoeba #10626298 by felidad |
| ephemeral | lasting a very short time | All dreams are ephemeral.Tatoeba #9231128 by DJ_Saidez |
| punctual | acting or arriving or performed exactly at the time appointed | You are not punctual.Tatoeba #7355949 by Eccles17 |
| truncated | cut short in duration | This information was deliberately truncated.Tatoeba #6829884 by Eccles17 |
| premature | born after a gestation period of less than the normal time | My daughter was premature.Tatoeba #322888 by CM |
| opportune | suitable or at a time that is suitable or advantageous especially for a particular purpose | You have come at an opportune time.Tatoeba #69888 by CK |
| contemporaneous | occurring in the same period of time | a rise in interest rates is often contemporaneous with an increase in inflation |
| ceaseless | uninterrupted in time and indefinitely long continuing | The noise was ceaseless.Tatoeba #2268425 by _undertoad |
| concurrent | occurring or operating at the same time | Are increases in life expectancy accompanied by a concurrent postponement of disability and functional limitations?Tatoeba #3152987 by Vanilla |
| waning | (of the Moon) pertaining to the period during which the visible surface of the moon decreases | The moon is waning.Tatoeba #3629949 by luci |
| simultaneous | occurring or operating at the same time | I acted as a simultaneous interpreter.Tatoeba #246971 by CK |