sic transitn.
/siːk ˈtranzɪt/ A catchphrase expressing the impermanence of things, in full sic transit gloria mundi, ‘thus passes the glory of the world’. The phrase is possibly an adaptation of a passage of Thomas à Kempis (see quot. 1427). For the use of these words in papal coronations see King's Classical & Foreign Quotations (ed. 3, 1904) 319.
ΘΚΠ
the world > time > duration > shortness or brevity in time > swift movement of time > [phrase] > the transience of worldly things
sic transit1601
1427 Thomas à Kempis De Imitatione Christi (Gaesdonck) (1877) i. iii. 7 O quam cito transit gloria mundi.]
1601 B. Jonson Every Man in his Humor v. i. sig. Mv Come lay this stuffe together. So, giue fire? there, see, see, how our Poets glory shines brighter, and brighter, still, still it increaseth, oh now its at the highest, and now it declines as fast: you may see gallants, Sic transit gloria mundi . View more context for this quotation
1777 H. Walpole Let. 5 Dec. (1904) X. 163 General Howe must probably return to defend New York. Sic transit gloria mundi!
1833 E. Bulwer-Lytton Godolphin III. xxiii. 250 His breathing..died away as insensibly as an infant. Sic transit gloria mundi!
1851 ‘G. Eliot’ Let. 4 Oct. (1954) I. 364 Sic transitur—i.e. the money from my pocket.
1915 D. H. Lawrence Crown in Refl. Death Porcupine (1925) 92 Despair comes over us when it [sc. the body] passes away. ‘Sic transit’, we say, in agony.
1951 ‘J. Wyndham’ Day of Triffids v. 104 ‘Never—never again now will you see a sight like that,’ I told myself. ‘Sic transit—.’
1965 ‘A. Nicol’ Truly Married Woman 16 They looked at it [sc. a Roman ruin] silently... ‘Sic transit,’ he'd said as they drove away.
1971 S. Jepson Let. to Dead Girl v. 50 What was once my dressing room is dismantled..(Sic transit gloria mundi, and so on).
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1986; most recently modified version published online December 2020).
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