Contemporánea

Contemporánea is the feminine form of the Spanish adjective contemporáneo. It describes things that exist at the same time as others or that belong to the present era. Depending on context, it can convey the sense of modern or current, and its exact nuance may vary with usage.

In everyday language, contemporánea is used with feminine nouns to denote contemporary or current phenomena, such as poesía contemporánea, música contemporánea, cultura contemporánea. For masculine or neuter nouns, the corresponding form is contemporáneo (arte contemporáneo, cine contemporáneo). The term is also common in expressions like tendencias contemporáneas or estudios contemporáneos, where gender and number align with the noun.

In historiography and cultural critique, contemporánea commonly refers to the modern or recent past. The phrase Edad Contemporánea designa la era que, for most traditions, starts in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century and continues to the present; the exact start and end can vary by country and scholarly school.

Etymology traces contemporánea to Latin contemporaneus, formed by con- (with) and tempus (time), via the evolution of Romance languages into modern Spanish. As a relative term, contemporánea depends on referents and context, distinguishing it from other temporal descriptors such as antiguo, moderno o actual.