[f. as TRANSIENT: see -ENCE.]
1. The action or fact of soon passing away; also, the condition or state of being transient, transiency.
1745. Brooke, An Anthem, iv. Here, from time and transience won, Beauty has her charms resignd.
a. 1822. Shelley, Ess. & Lett. (1852), I. 184. A being whose thoughts wander through eternity, disclaiming alliance with transience and decay.
1849. Taits Mag., XVI. 8. Shadows glide away, in transience fleet.
1875. Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), III. 126. Regarding the transience of pleasure as a proof of its unreality.
1905. Westm. Gaz., 22 April, 12/3. Any other explanation of the transience of French Protestantism.
2. The state or quality of being transient in sense 2; = TRANSCENDENCE 1 b.
18823. Schaffs Encycl. Relig. Knowl., I. 370. [Calvinism] emphasizes at once the transience of God beyond, and the immanence of God within, the world.