Test Your Knowledge - and learn some interesting things along the way.

"Fugacious" is often used to describe immaterial things like emotions, but not always. Botanists, for example, use it to describe plant parts that wither or fall off before the usual time. Things that are fugacious are fleeting, and etymologically they can also be said to be fleeing. "Fugacious" derives from the Latin verb "fugere," which means "to flee." Other descendants of "fugere" include "fugitive," "refuge," and "subterfuge."

Examples

The rock band's rise in popularity turned out to be fugacious, and within two years its members had moved on to other careers.

"It is of no surprise that their debt problem is not fugacious, it is insurmountable. It is an impossible task for Greece to pay its debt." - From a letter to the editor by Alfonso Tiu Henderson in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, February 12, 2012