fleeting moment
Gone before noticed
A fleeting moment is a brief span of time that passes quickly, often before it can be fully appreciated or grasped.
The phrase emphasizes transience—the sense that something meaningful or beautiful slipped away almost as soon as it arrived: For a fleeting moment, she thought she recognized him.
The redundancy of pairing fleeting with moment adds emotional weight, underscoring just how quickly the experience vanished.
- briefShort in duration
- instantBriefest unit of time
- split secondInfinitesimal unit of time
- blink of an eyeExtremely brief duration
- ephemeralLasting very briefly
transient · passing · flash · blink · heartbeat · whisper · glimpse · glimmer · vanishing · fading · slip away · quicksilver · wisp · breath · spark · flicker · snapshot · stolen
- momentsinstant, second, flash, jiffy, tick
- opportunitygolden opportunity, window of opportunity, opportunity knocks, once in a lifetime, golden chance
- poetic phrasesonce upon a time, happily ever after, star-crossed lovers, sweet sorrow, eternal flame
- time sayingstime flies, time is money, time heals all wounds, time will tell, carpe diem
- Time Symbolshourglass, clock, sundial, calendar, grandfather clock
- Impressionismwater lilies, Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Giverny, Monet
fleeting momentconstant
Fixed, unvarying quantity
perpetuity · permanence · timelessness · immutability · here to stay
fleeting, moment, fleet, fleetingly, fleetingness, moments, momentary, momentarily, momentum