Ephemeral

 WORD OF THE DAY

ephemeral / adjective / ih-FEM-uh-rul

Definition
1: lasting a very short time
2: lasting one day only

Examples
"The varieties available at the plant sale include spring ephemeral wildflowers, which bloom a short period of time in the spring…."
— Cris Belle, WJW Fox 8 News (Cleveland, Ohio), 2 May 2022

This accounts for the peculiar sense most observers have that the ephemeral, sensationalist, polymorphous, magpie popular culture of the United States is at bottom remarkably conservative …
— Louis Menand, Harper's, March 1993

Did You Know?
In its aquatic immature stages, the mayfly (order Ephemeroptera) has all the time in the world—or not quite: among the approximately 2,500 species of mayflies, some have as much as two years, but a year is more common.
But in its adult phase, the typical mayfly hatches, takes wing for the first time, mates, and dies within the span of a few short hours. This briefest of heydays makes the insect a potent symbol of life's ephemeral nature.
When ephemeral (from the Greek word ephēmeros, meaning "lasting a day") first appeared in print in English in the late 16th century, it was a scientific term applied to short-term fevers, and later, to organisms (such as insects and flowers) with very short life spans.
Soon after that, it acquired an extended sense referring to anything fleeting and short-lived, as in "ephemeral pleasures."