existing, occurring, or living at the same time; belonging to the same time: Newton's discovery of the calculus was contemporary with that of Leibniz.
of about the same age or date: a Georgian table with a contemporary wig stand.
of the present time; modern: a lecture on the contemporary novel.
noun,pluralcon·tem·po·rar·ies.
a person belonging to the same time or period with another or others.
a person of the same age as another.
Origin of contemporary
1625–35; <Late Latin contempor- (see contemporize) + -ary
SYNONYMS FOR contemporary
1 coexistent, concurrent, simultaneous.
SEE SYNONYMS FOR contemporary ON THESAURUS.COM
synonym study for contemporary
1. Contemporary,contemporaneous,coeval,coincident all mean happening or existing at the same time. Contemporary often refers to persons or their acts or achievements: Hemingway and Fitzgerald, though contemporary, shared few values.Contemporaneous is applied chiefly to events: the rise of industrialism, contemporaneous with the spread of steam power.Coeval refers either to very long periods of time—an era or an eon—or to remote or long ago times: coeval stars, shining for millenia with equal brilliance; coeval with the dawning of civilization.Coincident means occurring at the same time but without causal or other relationships: prohibition, coincident with the beginning of the 1920s.
Brokerages get paid for their customers’ orders from market makers—contemporary versions of what Madoff’s trading company was.
How Ponzi mastermind Bernie Madoff enabled the US retail trading boom|John Detrixhe|August 30, 2020|Quartz
If Robins had been a contemporary of Peter Gethers, he might have been a candidate for the Rotisserie League.
The Economics of Sports Gambling (Ep. 388 Rebroadcast)|Stephen J. Dubner|August 20, 2020|Freakonomics
In contemporary times, researchers have sought to understand the ways in which rituals bind people together.
Why do we miss the rituals put on hold by the COVID-19 pandemic?|Sujata Gupta|August 14, 2020|Science News
Price does not contain all relevant information for many shoppers in a contemporary supermarket.
How the Supermarket Helped America Win the Cold War (Ep. 386 Rebroadcast)|Stephen J. Dubner|August 6, 2020|Freakonomics
Which is why Haile’s contemporaries have been mostly forgiving about Scroll, the ad-free subscription service he teased for three years before finally launching widely six months ago.
Inside Tony Haile’s expedition to (help) save the news business |Steven Perlberg|July 27, 2020|Digiday
Some contemporary police have military backgrounds to fall back on.
A Veteran’s View: NYC Cold War Between Cops and City Hall|Matt Gallagher|December 29, 2014|DAILY BEAST
That goes for its contemporary membership roster as well as for the photographers represented in the exhibition.
A History of Paris in 150 Photographs|Sarah Moroz|December 14, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Paris as depicted by contemporary photography appears… lackluster.
A History of Paris in 150 Photographs|Sarah Moroz|December 14, 2014|DAILY BEAST
But contemporary classical music has changed, and the field is now spawning many appealing and genre-bending works.
The Best Albums of 2014|Ted Gioia|December 13, 2014|DAILY BEAST
According to contemporary reports, at several of the truces, there were rough soccer matches between the German and British sides.
Royals Remember The Christmas Truce of 1914|Tom Sykes|December 12, 2014|DAILY BEAST
The English minsters are long, narrow and low in contrast with the greater squareness and height of French contemporary churches.
The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, vol. 06, No. 12, December 1900|Various
For contemporary readers the importance of the Laus Stultitiae was, to a great extent, in the direct satire.
Erasmus and the Age of Reformation|Johan Huizinga
All over the world past and contemporary history proves that, once started, health spreads at a rate that disease cannot follow.
Health, Happiness, and Longevity|Louis Philippe McCarty
Contemporary critics have also betrayed a certain concern for some aspects of Lowell's criticism.
Modern American Prose Selections|Various
This document, printed by Gachard, is a version from the German original by the hand of a contemporary.
History of the Reign of Philip the Second, King of Spain.|William H. Prescott
British Dictionary definitions for contemporary
contemporary
/ (kənˈtɛmprərɪ) /
adjective
belonging to the same age; living or occurring in the same period of time
existing or occurring at the present time
conforming to modern or current ideas in style, fashion, design, etc
having approximately the same age as one another
nounplural-raries
a person living at the same time or of approximately the same age as another
something that is contemporary
journalisma rival newspaper
Derived forms of contemporary
contemporarily, adverbcontemporariness, noun
Word Origin for contemporary
C17: from Medieval Latin contemporārius, from Latin com- together + temporārius relating to time, from tempus time
usage for contemporary
Since contemporary can mean either of the same period or of the present period, it is best to avoid this word where ambiguity might arise, as in a production of Othello in contemporary dress. Modern dress or Elizabethan dress should be used in this example to avoid ambiguity