Search the Dictionary

which simply and directly urges to action; hasty inclination; sudden motive; momentary or transient influence of appetite or passion; propension; incitement; as, a man of good impulses; passion often gives a violent impulse to the will. These were my natural impulses for the undertaking. Dryden.

Actuated by impulse or by transient feelings. My heart, impulsive and wayward. Longfellow.

One who dwells or resides permanently in a place, as distinguished from a transient lodger or visitor; as, an inhabitant of a house, a town, a city, county, or state. "Frail inhabitants of earth." Cowper. In this place, they report that they saw inhabitants which were very fair and fat people. Abp. Abbot.…

Specif.: A transient luminous body or appearance seen in the atmosphere, or in a more elevated region. The vaulty top of heaven Figured quite o'er with burning meteors. Shak.

Flashing; brilliant; transient; like a meteor; as, meteoric fame. "Meteoric politician." Craik. Meteoric iron, Meteoric stone. (Min.) See Meteorite. -- Meteoric paper, a substance of confervoid origin found floating in the air, and resembling bits of coarse paper; -- so called because formerly supposed to fall from me…

A change of key, whether transient, or until the music becomes established in the new key; a shifting of the tonality of a piece, so that the harmonies all center upon a new keynote or tonic; the art of transition out of the original key into one nearly related, and so on, it may be, by successive changes, into a key q…

The transient approximation of the edges of a natural opening; imperforation. Dunglison. Occlusion of gases (Chem. & Physics), the phenomenon of absorbing gases, as exhibited by platinum, palladium, iron, or charcoal; thus, palladium absorbs, or occludes, nearly a thousand times its own volume of hydrogen, and in this…

A small, shining body, or transient light; a sparkle.

A public house where travelers and other transient guests are accomodated with rooms and meals; an inn; a hotel; especially, in modern times, a public house licensed to sell liquor in small quantities.

The quality of being transient; transientness.

The nettle rash, a disease characterized by a transient eruption of red pimples and of wheals, accompanied with a burning or stinging sensation and with itching; uredo.

P. Sidney. [Sin] with vanity had filled the works of men. Milton. Think not, when woman's transient breath is fled, That all her vanities at once are dead; Succeeding vanities she still regards. Pope.

in a few days after the death of her daughter. Addison. Things reflected on in gross and transiently . . . are thought to be wrapped up in impenetrable obscurity. Locke.