Wordnet 3.0
ADJECTIVE (1)
1.
tending to vanish like vapor;
- Example: "evanescent beauty"
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Evanescent \Ev`a*nes"cent\, a. [L. evanescens, -entis, p. pr. of
evanescere.]
1. Liable to vanish or pass away like vapor; vanishing;
fleeting; as, evanescent joys.
[1913 Webster]
So evanescent are the fashions of the world in these
particulars. --Hawthorne.
[1913 Webster]
2. Vanishing from notice; imperceptible.
[1913 Webster]
The difference between right and wrong, in some
petty cases, is almost evanescent. --Wollaston.
[1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
evanescent
adj 1: tending to vanish like vapor; "evanescent beauty"
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
65 Moby Thesaurus words for "evanescent":
atomic, brittle, capricious, changeable, corpuscular, corruptible,
deciduous, disappearing, dissolving, dying, embryonic, ephemeral,
evaporating, fading, fickle, fleeting, flitting, fly-by-night,
flying, fragile, frail, fugacious, fugitive, germinal, granular,
impalpable, imperceptible, impermanent, impetuous, imponderable,
impulsive, inappreciable, inconstant, indiscernible, infinitesimal,
insubstantial, intangible, invisible, melting, microcosmic,
microscopic, molecular, momentary, mortal, mutable, nondurable,
nonpermanent, passing, perishable, short-lived, subatomic,
temporal, temporary, tenuous, thin, transient, transitive,
transitory, ultramicroscopic, undurable, unenduring, unseeable,
unstable, vanishing, volatile