temporal

Etymology 1

From Middle English temporal, temporel (“transitory, worldly, material, of secular society”), from Old French temporel or Latin temporālis (“of time (in grammar), temporary, relating to time as opposed to eternity”), from tempus (“time, period, opportunity”) + -ālis.

adj

1. (relational) Of or relating to the material world, as opposed to sacred or clerical.
   temporal power, temporal courts
   The [papal] train was in use until 1871, when the Pope [Pius IX] lost his temporal power. 1945 September and October, C. Hamilton Ellis, “Royal Trains—V”, in Railway Magazine, page 252
   Not long before, he had ruefully acknowledged in a letter to his pious mother that most of his appointments to the bench of bishops had been motivated by distinctly temporal impulses. 2011, Thomas Penn, Winter King: The Dawn of Tudor England, Penguin Books, page 166
2. (relational) Relating to time:
   1. Of limited time, transient, passing, not perpetual, as opposed to eternal.
      1. (euphemistic) Lasting for a short time only.
   2. Of or relating to time as distinguished from space.
   3. Of or relating to the sequence of time or to a particular time.
   4. (grammar) Relating to or denoting time or tense.

noun

1. (chiefly in the plural) Anything temporal or secular; a temporality.

Etymology 2

Middle English, from Middle French timporal, temporal, from Late Latin temporālis, from tempora (“the temples of the head”) + -ālis (“-al”, adjectival suffix). Doublet of temporalis.

adj

1. (anatomy, relational) Of or situated in the temples of the head or the sides of the skull behind the orbits.

noun

1. (anatomy) Ellipsis of temporal bone.
2. (zootomy) Any of a reptile's scales on the side of the head between the parietal and supralabial scales, and behind the postocular scales.