contemporary

Recorded since 1631, from Medieval Latin contemporarius, from Latin con- (“with, together”) + temporarius (“of time”), from tempus (“time”)

• IPA: /kənˈtɛm.pəˌɹɛɹ.i/

contemporary (comparative more contemporary, superlative most contemporary)

1. From the same time period, coexistent in time.
   • Cowley

     A grove born with himself he sees, / And loves his old contemporary trees.

   • Strype

     This king was contemporary with the greatest monarchs of Europe.

2. Modern, of the present age.
   • 2012 January 1, Robert L. Dorit, “Rereading Darwin”, in American Scientist‎, volume 100, number 1, page 23:

     We live our lives in three dimensions for our threescore and ten allotted years. Yet every branch of contemporary science, from statistics to cosmology, alludes to processes that operate on scales outside of human experience: the millisecond and the nanometer, the eon and the light-year.

   • 2012 May 24, Nathan Rabin, “Film: Reviews: Men In Black 3”, in The Onion AV Club‎:

     Men In Black 3 finagles its way out of this predicament by literally resetting the clock with a time-travel premise that makes Will Smith both a contemporary intergalactic cop in the late 1960s and a stranger to Josh Brolin, who plays the younger version of Smith’s stone-faced future partner, Tommy Lee Jones.

• contemporaneous

• anachronistic: in the wrong time period
• archaic

• contemporarily
• penecontemporary

contemporary (plural contemporaries)

1. Someone or something living at the same time, or of roughly the same age as another.

   Cervantes was a contemporary of Shakespeare.

   The early mammals inherited the earth by surviving their saurian contemporaries.

   • 2018 January 1, Donald McRae, “The Guardian footballer of the year 2017: Juan Mata”, in the Guardian‎:

     Life is predicated by the decisions and choices we make – and, earlier this year, the personal fused with the professional again as Mata reached the landmark moment when he knew he had to try to harness football’s power for the benefit of people less fortunate than him and his contemporaries.

2. Something existing at the same time.
   1. (dated) A rival newspaper or magazine.
      • 1900, The Speaker, the Liberal Review (volume 2, page 621)

        Annexation therefore was inevitable; but (as I have said above) it was not necessarily of prime importance in our national policy, and there has been no need to exaggerate—as I fear many of our contemporaries have exaggerated— […]

• contemporary in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• contemporary in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• contemporary at OneLook Dictionary Search