In order to know the meaning of the term fleeting, it is necessary, first of all, to reveal its etymological origin. In this case, we can highlight that it derives from Latin, specifically from the word “fugax”, which can be translated as “brief” and that it is the result of the sum of two clearly delimited lexical components:
-The verb “fugare”, which is synonymous with “flee”.
-The suffix “-ax”, which is used to indicate “strong tendency towards something”.
This adjective can be used to describe someone who manages to escape or disappear quickly . It is also used with respect to things of very short duration .
For example: “A fleeting appearance of the woman in the security camera recording is the most important clue that investigators have,” “She had a fleeting career in the music industry, although she dedicated most of her life to his work as a doctor” , “The actor took a few minutes to make a brief visit to the children's hospital, where he spoke with the little ones” .
Among the synonyms of fleeting we find words such as ephemeral, short, fast, transitory, passing or elusive. On the contrary, among its antonyms there are terms such as durable, stable or prolonged, for example.
Suppose that, in a play, an actor only appears on stage for twenty seconds, during which time he simply says to the protagonist: “Please come in, the gentleman is waiting for you.” Given the characteristics of his work, it can be said that this actor has a fleeting participation in the work in question.
A shooting star , on the other hand, is a luminous body that bursts into the atmosphere moving at high speed and soon goes out. Beyond what this colloquial name suggests, shooting stars are actually not stars , but meteors : phenomena that are generated when a meteoroid or meteorite passes through the atmosphere.
Shooting stars, therefore, consist of particles that enter the Earth's atmosphere at high speed, generating luminosity due to friction. A shooting star can have a more or less long trajectory and show little or much brightness. The transience is given by the fact that they generally disappear from sight very quickly.
Within the field of medicine we have to recognize that the term that concerns us now is also used. Thus, for example, there is talk of what is called amaurosis fugax, also known as temporary monocular blindness.
Basically, this consists of a person temporarily losing vision in one of their eyes as a result of the fact that at that moment there has been an absence of blood circulation through the retina of said eye. Specifically, this lack of vision can last a few seconds or can last for several minutes.
Among the causes that can cause this situation are from a head injury to a brain tumor, inflammation of the optic nerve, a disease such as multiple sclerosis, polyarteritis nodosa or the existence of a clot.