A word like ethereal that also means quickly vanishing [duplicate]
Solution 1:
You are probably looking for the word ephemeral.
ephemeral: Lasting for a very short time.
Solution 2:
evanescent is a good match - definitions focus on loss and vaporous qualities. It seems to be applied most often to the loss of things with positive connotation.
MW defines it with : "tending to vanish like vapor",
Cambridge with "lasting for only a short time, then disappearing quickly and being forgotten"
Century Dictionary Online has a number of useful definitions and quotes. I like "Vanishing or apt to vanish or be dissipated, like vapor; passing away; fleeting: as, the pleasures and joys of life are evanescent.
Also from Century, this quote: "He [Wordsworth] seems to have caught and fixed forever in immutable grace the most evanescent and intangible of our intuitions, the very ripple-marks on the remotest shores of being." - Lowell, Among my Books
Solution 3:
I think, at least in the context of the digital industry and knowledge economy, we can broadly define three types of skills – Enduring, Tansient [sic] and Transferable.
Transient skills are those that change often and need regularly updating. Things like specific software packages, programming languages, tools, technologies, techniques and latest best practice.
– What Do We Mean By ‘Skills’ Anyway? hirschworks.com
If it's not like riding a bike, then it's a transient skill.
transient, adjective. 1a : passing especially quickly into and out of existence
Synonyms: transient, transitory, ephemeral, momentary, fugitive, fleeting, evanescent
– Merriam-Webster
Skills that are 'use it or lose it' are fleeting.
fleeting, adjective. passing swiftly : transitory
– Merriam-Webster
"Instrument proficiency is a [transient/fleeting] skill that once obtained must... [obviously be practiced (because you used either of those words)]."
Solution 4:
I'd like to suggest perishable. It's usually used for food, of course, but I think it sounds fine as a metaphor.
Lexico defines it as
- (especially of food) likely to decay or go bad quickly.
‘the storage of perishable foods’
‘caviar is extremely perishable’
You could write, Instrument flying is a perishable skill. If you don't use it for a few weeks, it rots.
Solution 5:
@Mazura's answer of transient is excellent and even "the recognized word," if the skill is lost because of rapid change in the exterior world. Another way to describe a rapidly changing world where you have to keep practicing your skill to stay relevant would be to call the situation an arms race or even a Red Queen's race.
But in your case of instrument flying, presumably the skill is lost because it fades from the brain after a few weeks, not because instrument panels and weather conditions change their fundamentals every few weeks.
Less mystical, but you could also just say that the skill expires — that it is expiring. Or decaying.
Your word ethereal is actually quite apt IMVHO, because there's at least some minor tradition in fantasy RPGs of using the word ethereal to refer to magical weapons that are powerful but time-limited.
- In Diablo 2: "So an Ethereal weapon will potentially have the biggest damage of any weapon in the game, but it wouldn't last long."
- In Hexx: Heresy of the Wizard: "Ethblade: Creates a weapon in a free hand. Allows double attacks..." (but the ethereal weapons disappear after a certain amount of time or number of hits, I forget which)
However, plenty of games use the name ethereal weapon for weapons that have some powerful effect but do not have the tradeoff of "expiring," more like a traditional holy weapon.
- D&D 5th Edition has non-fragile ethereal weapons (their version of Hexx's ethblade spell is called spiritual weapon instead).
- DotA 2 has non-fragile ethereal weapons as far as I can tell.
- Nioh has some kind of Ethereal modifier that does not connote fragility as far as I can tell.
So I'm fairly sure that most people wouldn't agree with my opinion that ethereal is an apt word to connote time-limited power. :)