Origin: Latin suffix -ary
Contemporary has 6 different meanings across 2 categories:
a person of nearly the same age as another
"She grew up alongside her contemporary, who also started learning piano at six years old."
Someone or something living at the same time, or of roughly the same age as another.
"As a contemporary of Einstein, Marie Curpie shared the 20th century's rapid scientific advancements."
In plain English: A contemporary is someone who lives at the same time as you or another person.
"The contemporary was wearing bright colors to the party."
Usage: Use contemporary as a noun to refer to a person who lived during the same period as someone else, such as calling Shakespeare a contemporary of Queen Elizabeth I. Avoid using it to mean "modern" when describing an object or style, since that is its primary adjective form.
characteristic of the present
"contemporary trends in design"
"the role of computers in modern-day medicine"
occurring in the same period of time
"a rise in interest rates is often contemporaneous with an increase in inflation"
"the composer Salieri was contemporary with Mozart"
From the same time period, coexistent in time; contemporaneous.
"The museum exhibition paired a famous Renaissance painting with contemporary sketches to show how artists of the same era viewed each other's work differently."
In plain English: Contemporary means happening now or belonging to the current time.
"The contemporary art exhibition featured works by modern artists from around the world."
Usage: Use contemporary to describe people or things that exist during the same historical era, such as two artists who lived and worked in the 1920s. Do not use it to mean modern or current if you are referring to something happening right now versus the past.
The word contemporary comes from the Medieval Latin contemporārius, which combined the prefix "con-" meaning "with" and temporārius relating to time. Originally describing people who lived at the same time, it traveled into English with this core sense of shared era.