Literary notes about fugacious (AI summary)
The term “fugacious” is frequently used to evoke a sense of transience and delicate impermanence in literature. In descriptive passages, it characterizes physical features that vanish almost as soon as they appear—for instance, the fleeting veil or ring on a mushroom’s stem is noted for its ephemeral nature ([1], [2]). At the same time, it is employed metaphorically to underscore the transient beauty of human achievements and emotions, as when honors, wealth, and even thoughts are depicted as short-lived ([3], [4], [5]). Thus, the word enriches texts by drawing attention to the inherent evanescence in both visible forms and abstract ideas.
- Hymenophore continuous with the stem, veil woven into a fugacious web, which adheres to the margin of the pileus.
— from Student's Hand-book of Mushrooms of America, Edible and Poisonous by Thomas Taylor - The ring is very small and fugacious, being little more than the abrupt termination to the coating of the stem.
— from Toadstools, mushrooms, fungi, edible and poisonous; one thousand American fungi How to select and cook the edible; how to distinguish and avoid the poisonous, with full botanic descriptions. Toadstool poisons and their treatment, instructions to students, recipes for cooking, etc., etc. by Charles McIlvaine - Honours and dignities are transient; --- beauty and riches frail and fugacious; --- but this amiable virtue, is permanent.
— from Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar by Edgar Rice Burroughs - The wealth acquired by speculation and plunder, is fugacious in its nature, and fills society with the spirit of gambling.
— from The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 2 (of 9) Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private by Thomas Jefferson - Nothing is in its own nature more fugacious and shifting than thought; and particularly thoughts upon the mysteries of Christianity.
— from On the Study of Words by Richard Chenevix Trench
