contemporary, adj. and n.
A. adj.
1.
a. Belonging to the same time, age, or period; living, existing, or occurring together in time.
1655 T. Fuller Church-hist. Brit. ii. 83 After King Oswald his Death, four Christian contemporary Kings flourished in England.
1711 J. Addison Spectator No. 101. ¶4 The Passions and Prejudices of a Contemporary Author.
1828 I. D'Israeli Comm. Life Charles I I. Pref. 7 Immense archives of contemporary documents.
1844 J. Ruskin Mod. Painters (ed. 2) I. Pref. p. xviii, He..who would maintain the cause of contemporary excellence against that of elder time.
1874 J. R. Green Short Hist. Eng. People vii. §7. 416 There are allusions in plenty to contemporary events.
b. Const. with.
1631 J. Weever Anc. Funerall Monuments 226 An Author contemporarie with this Archbishop.
1642 J. Howell Instr. Forreine Travell iii. 38 Commines, who was contemporary with Machiavil.
1790 W. Paley Horæ Paulinæ Rom. ii. 16 Either contemporary with that or prior to it.
1845 M. Pattison in Christian Remembrancer Jan. 66 Writers contemporary with the events they write of.
c. Const. to, unto. Obs.
a1641 R. Montagu Acts & Monuments (1642) 179 Cumæa was contemporary to the warre of Troy.
1646 Sir T. Browne Pseudodoxia Epidemica v. xii. 251 Galen who was contemporary unto Plutarch.
a1727 I. Newton Short. Chron. 1st Memory in Chronol. Anc. Kingdoms Amended (1728) 39 Clisthenes, Alcmæon and Eurolicus..were contemporary to Phidon.
1750 W. Warburton Julian i. iii, He was not only contemporary to the fact, but, etc.
β. cotemporary.
1662 E. Stillingfleet Origines Sacræ i. v. §8 Sesac King of Ægypt, co-temporary with Rhehoboam.
1698 C. Boyle On Bentley's Phalaris 167 Allowing then that Solon and Thespis were Cotemporary.
[1699 R. Bentley Diss. Epist. Phalaris (new ed.) Pref. p. lxxxvi, I would rather use..these [words] than that single word of the Examiner's Cotemporary, which is a downright Barbarism.]
1736 Bp. J. Butler Analogy of Relig. ii. vii. 238 Events subsequent and cotemporary with the Miracles.
1759 W. Robertson Hist. Scotl. (1817) I. 384 Cotemporary writers.
1762 Gentleman's Mag. (1806) Mar. 102/2 We often meet with the word cotemporary... The word should always be spelled contemporary.
1782 C. Burney Gen. Hist. Music II. 8 (note) Prudentius, a Christian poet, cotemporary with Theodosius.
1816 L. Murray Eng. Gram. Illustr. (ed. 3) I. App. iii. ii. 534, I prefer contemporary to cotemporary.
1828 Webster Amer. Dict. Eng. Lang., Contemporary..For the sake of easier pronunciation and a more agreeable sound, the word is often changed to cotemporary..the preferable word.
1861 F. Max Müller Lect. Sci. Lang. (1864) 1st Ser. 138 Supported by cotemporary scholars.
2. Having existed or lived from the same date, equal in age, coeval.
a1667 A. Cowley Claudian's Old Man of V. 22 A neighbouring Wood born with himself he sees, And loves his old contemporary Trees.
1673 R. Leigh Transproser Rehears'd 42 Making Light contemporary with it's Creator.
1794 R. J. Sulivan View of Nature I. 315 The water is as ancient as the earth, and contemporary with it.
β.
1879 M. Pattison Milton 3 John Milton was born, 9th Dec., 1608, being thus exactly cotemporary with Lord Clarendon.
3. Occurring at the same moment of time, or during the same period; occupying the same definite period; contemporaneous, simultaneous.
1656 T. Hobbes Elements Philos. ii. xiii. 110 All the parts of them [i.e. lines] which are contemporary, that is, which are described in the same time.
1666 Philos. Trans. 16656 (Royal Soc.) 1 271 Not that by the Moons motion about its Axis the Earth should be carried by a contemporary Period.
1806 C. Hutton Course Math. (ed. 5) II. 290 Contemporary Fluents, or Contemporary Fluxions, are such as flow together, or for the same time.
β.
1794 G. Adams Lect. Nat. & Exper. Philos. III. xxxi. 320 The number of cotemporary turns of a wheel and pinion are reciprocally proportional to their number of teeth.
1799 S. Vince Elem. Astron. (1810) xv. 125 The cotemporary variations of these angles.
4.
a. Modern; of or characteristic of the present period; esp. up-to-date, ultra-modern; spec. designating art of a markedly avant-garde quality, or furniture, building, decoration, etc., having modern characteristics (opp. period n. 10).
1866 (title) The Contemporary Review.
1924 C. Gray (title) A survey of contemporary music.
1925 A. Huxley Those Barren Leaves i. i. 4 A frock that was at once old-fashioned and tremendously contemporary.
1930 London Mercury XXII. 424 These great poetical prizes tend..to become the perquisites of conservative-minded and imperfectly contemporary writers.
1934 B.B.C. Year-bk. 220 Nor can one imagine a devotee of variety or vaudeville finding any good points in a contemporary or chamber music recital.
1935 S. Lewis It can't happen Here xiii. 135 The contemporary furniture of the 1930's.
1949 Archit. Rev. 106 315 Flats which, especially in London,..are the form in which contemporary design is making the strongest impact on the urban scene.
1954 W. Lewis Demon of Progress i. i. 15 To be musically contemporary in England is to be something like Benjamin Britten; unless you wish to ignore entirely the majority trend.
1954 W. Lewis Demon of Progress iii. xviii. 66 What in your view is the most contemporary kind of painting in England at the present moment.
1957 C. MacInnes City of Spades 213 A building..redecorated in a contemporary stylelight salmon wood, cubistic lanterns, leather cushions of pastel shades.
1958 Times 23 July 6/6 The council have noted with some concern the emergence in certain industries of exaggerated styles and mannerisms that have come to be known as contemporary.
1959 D. Cooke Lang. Music ii. 55 The contemporary avant-garde composers..all concur in the principle of equating the major triad with pleasure.
b. absol.
1954 W. Lewis Demon of Progress iii. xviii. 67 The contemporary is a cultural élite...So the contemporary has nothing to do with time, nor with age.
1956 R. Crompton Matty & Dearingroydes i. 12 The little sitting-room..with its subtle blending of the contemporary and the period.
1962 L. Deighton Ipcress File xxx. 190 It was a tasteful piece of contemporary; natural wood~finish doors, stainless steel windows and venetian blinds everywhere.
B. n.
a. One who lives at the same time with another or others.
(In this sense Harrison, Descr. Britain, 1577, used Synchroni or time fellows.)
1646 W. Price Mans Delinquencie 9 Their spirits, contemporaries to S. Austine.
1670 I. Walton Lives iv. 319 Their being contemporaries in Cambridge.
1700 Dryden Fables Pref. sig. *Av, From Chaucer I was led to think on Boccace, who was..his Contemporary.
1751 Johnson Rambler No. 145. ⁋11 More acquainted with his contemporaries than with past generations.
1847 R. W. Emerson Uses Great Men in Wks. (1906) I. 284 Men resemble their contemporaries, even more than their progenitors.
1871 B. Jowett in tr. Plato Dialogues IV. 3 The comic poet Alexis, a younger contemporary of Plato.
β.
1641 Naunton's Fragmenta Regalia sig. D3v, My Lord of Leicester, and Burleigh, both his Cotemporaries [1653, Con-], and familiars.
1657 P. Heylyn Ecclesia Vindicata i. iv. 168 Now Bel and Serug were Cotemporaries.
1667 T. Sprat Hist. Royal-Soc. 81 (T.) Our cotemporaries, who only follow rude and untaught nature.
1678 R. L'Estrange tr. Epistles ix. 72 in Seneca's Morals Abstracted (1679) , He, and I, were Cotemporaries.
1728 J. Morgan Compl. Hist. Algiers I. iii. 247 One of his own Country Princes, and his Cotemporary.
1751 Johnson Rambler No. 167. ⁋8 The hopes and fears of our cotemporaries.
1846 J. S. Mill Syst. Logic (ed. 2) iii. xiii. §7 As novel as the law of gravitation appeared to the cotemporaries of Newton.
1879 M. Pattison Milton 1 A cotemporary of Milton, John Aubrey.
b. Used by a journal or periodical in referring to others published at the same time.
[1837 Dickens Pickwick Papers l. 548 Does our fiendish contemporary wince?]
1869 Spectator 25 Dec. 1517 We quote from our contemporary the Vatican the following remarkable statement.
c. A person of the same age as another.
1742 T. Gray Let. 27 May in Corr. (1971) I. 210, I shall see Mr. ** and his Wife, nay, and his Child too... Is it not odd to consider one's Cotemporaries in the grave light of Husband and Father?
1880 L. B. Walford Troublesome Daughters I. ix. 179 Even Alice and Kate must not look upon him quite as though he were a contemporary.