temporal
/ˈtɛm.pə.ɹəl/
temporal adjective: of or relating to the material world, as opposed to sacred or clerical. Also the ellipsis of temporal bone.
Adjective (1)
temporal (not generally comparable, comparative more temporal, superlative most temporal)
- Of or relating to the material world, as opposed to sacred or clerical.
- temporal power, temporal courts
- The Right Honourable the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled
- Synonyms:
- secular, lay, civil, worldly, areligious, earthly, irreligious, laicist, laicistic, mundane
- Antonyms:
- spiritual, ecclesiastical
- Of limited time, transient, passing, not perpetual, as opposed to eternal.
- The things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 2 Corinthians 4:18
- Lasting for a short time only.
- Of or relating to time as distinguished from space.
- Of or relating to the sequence of time or to a particular time.
- Synonyms:
- chronological
- Relating to or denoting time or tense.
Noun (1)
temporal (plural temporals)
- Anything temporal or secular; a temporality.
- for God's people love always to be dealing as well in temporals as spirituals1684, John Dryden, The History of the League, translation of Histoire de la Ligue by Louis Maimbourg
- He assigns supremacy to the pope in spirituals, and to the emperor in temporals.1876, James Russell Lowell, “Dante”, in Among My Books. Second Series., Boston, Mass.: James R[ipley] Osgood and Company, late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co., →OCLC, page 30
Adjective (2)
temporal (not comparable)
Noun (2)
temporal (plural temporals)
- Any of a reptile's scales on the side of the head between the parietal and supralabial scales, and behind the postocular scales.
Also used as
temporal is also the ellipsis of temporal bone.
temporal meaning in Hindi and Persian
temporal in Hindi
- लौकिक
temporal in Persian
- of or relating to time
- زمانی zamâni
- of or relating to the material world
- دنیوی donyavi
Examples of temporal in a sentence
- The [papal] train was in use until 1871, when the Pope [Pius IX] lost his temporal power.1945 September and October, C. Hamilton Ellis, “Royal Trains—V”, in Railway Magazine, page 252:
- Not long before, he had ruefully acknowledged in a letter to his pious mother that most of his appointments to the bench of bishops had been motivated by distinctly temporal impulses.2011, Thomas Penn, Winter King: The Dawn of Tudor England, Penguin Books, page 166:
Synonyms of temporal
5 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Antonyms
Forms of temporal
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more temporal |
| superlative | most temporal |
| Noun | |
| plural | temporals |
Origin of temporal
From Middle English temporal, temporel (“transitory, worldly, material, of secular society”), from Old French temporel or Latin temporālis (“of time (in grammar), temporary, relating to time as opposed to eternity”), from tempus (“time, period, opportunity”) + -ālis.
From Middle English, from Middle French timporal, temporal, from Late Latin temporālis, from tempora (“the temples of the head”) + -ālis (“-al”, adjectival suffix). Doublet of temporalis.
Words formed from temporal
- anterotemporal
- auriculotemporal
- basotemporal
- basitemporal
- bitemporal
- centrotemporal
- corticotemporal
- deep temporal nerve
- dorsotemporal
- frontotemporal
- inferotemporal
- infratemporal
- intratemporal
- laterotemporal
- mediotemporal
- mesiotemporal
- midtemporal
- nasotemporal
- occipitotemporal
- ophthalmotemporal
- orbitotemporal
- parietotemporal
- posttemporal
- rostrotemporal
- septotemporal
- sphenotemporal
- subtemporal
- superotemporal
- temporal apophysis
- temporal artery
- temporal bone
- temporal fossa
- temporal lobe
- temporal muscle
- temporalward
- temporalwards
- temporo-
- tempor-
- ventrotemporal
- zygomaticotemporal
- abtemporal
- antitemporal
- atemporal
- biotemporal
- contemporal
- cotemporal
- equitemporal
- geotemporal
- hypertemporal
- intemporal
- intertemporal
- isotemporal
- metatemporal
- microtemporal
- monotemporal
- multitemporal
- nontemporal
- omnitemporal
- phylotemporal
- physiotemporal
Phrases with temporal
Words that rhyme with temporal
- transtemporal
- bitemporal
- extratemporal
- intratemporal
- multitemporal
- nontemporal
- spatiotemporal
- supratemporal
- anterotemporal
- antitemporal
- atemporal
- auriculotemporal
42 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- basitemporal
- basotemporal
- biotemporal
- centrotemporal
- corticotemporal
- cotemporal
- dorsotemporal
- frontotemporal
- geotemporal
- hypertemporal
- inferotemporal
- infratemporal
- intertemporal
- isotemporal
- laterotemporal
- mediotemporal
- microtemporal
- midtemporal
- monotemporal
- nasotemporal
- occipitotemporal
- omnitemporal
- ophthalmotemporal
- orbitotemporal
- parietotemporal
- phylotemporal
- physiotemporal
- posttemporal
- pretemporal
- pseudotemporal
- rostrotemporal
- septotemporal
- sociotemporal
- spectrotemporal
- sphenotemporal
- subtemporal
- superotemporal
- tritemporal
- unitemporal
- ventrotemporal
- visuotemporal
- zygomaticotemporal
Questions about temporal
- What does temporal mean?
- Temporal means of or relating to the material world, as opposed to sacred or clerical.
- What is temporal in Hindi?
- Temporal in Hindi is लौकिक. See Temporal meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use temporal in a sentence?
- The [papal] train was in use until 1871, when the Pope [Pius IX] lost his temporal power.
- What part of speech is temporal?
- Temporal can be an adjective or a noun.
- How do you pronounce temporal?
- Temporal is pronounced /ˈtɛm.pə.ɹəl/.
Words near temporal in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: temporal (page history and authors); temporal (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-temporal.wav.
Cite this entry: “temporal.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/temporal. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.