momentané

See also: momentane

French

Alternative forms

• momentanée m or f (obsolete)

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin mōmentāneus.

In modern French, only words descending from Latin borrowings of Greek origin ending in the suffixes -ēus/-ēum, -aeus/-aeum (and exceptionally -ius/-ium, as in élysée/Élysée) are written with -ée in the masculine.

Words descending from Latin words in -āneus (a different suffix, from -ānus +‎ -eus), are now written with the ending -ané (as seen, for example, in méditerrané, spontané). The first four editions of the Dictionnaire de l'Académie française spelled these words with -anée before adopting the current spelling in the fifth edition.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mɔ.mɑ̃.ta.ne/

• Audio (Switzerland (Valais)):

  (file)

• Audio (France (Vosges)):

  (file)

• Homophones: momentanée, momentanées, momentanés

Adjective

momentané (feminine momentanée, masculine plural momentanés, feminine plural momentanées)

1. momentary

Derived terms

• momentanément

Further reading

• “momentané”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012