Contemporary

How to spell contemporary

12 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce contemporary

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does contemporary mean?

1. adjectiveBelonging to or characteristic of the present day; modern in style.
2. adjectiveExisting or occurring during the same period as something or someone else.
3. nounA person living or working at the same time as another.

Contemporary in a sentence

• adjective

  The gallery specialises in contemporary art from living painters.

• adjective

  The diary gives a contemporary account of the famous battle.

• noun

  The composer was admired by every musical contemporary of his generation.

• adjective

  They renovated the kitchen in a clean contemporary style.

• adjective

  These letters are contemporary with the building of the canal.

• noun

  As a young lawyer she outshone many an older contemporary.

Where does contemporary come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin tempus, meaning 'time', whose stem appears as tempor-, the same root that gives us 'temporary' and 'tempo'. Medieval Latin combined it with the prefix con-, meaning 'together' or 'with', to form contemporarius, literally describing things or people belonging to the same time. English adopted it in the early 1600s, at first to mean simply 'living or happening at the same period', and only later did it broaden to mean 'of the present day' or 'modern'. The hidden middle syllable is the spelling trap: writers say con-TEM-prary and drop the unstressed 'por', yet the time root demands that 'tempor' be written in full. Remember the buried word 'temporary' inside it and the spelling falls into place.

How the word is built

• con- (together, with)
• tempor (time, from Latin tempus)
• -ary (adjective/noun suffix)