[1] : The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48

transitory \tran"sitory\, a. l. transitorius: cf. f.
   transitoire. see transient.
   continuing only for a short time; not enduring; fleeting;
   evanescent.
   1913 webster

         comfort and succor all those who, in this transitory
         life, are in trouble.                    --bk. of com.
                                                  prayer.
   1913 webster

         it was not the transitory light of a comet, which
         shines and glows for a wile, and then . . . vanishes
         into nothing.                            --south.
   1913 webster

   transitory action law, an action which may be brought in
      any county, as actions for debt, and the like; -- opposed
      to local action. --blackstone. bouvier.
      1913 webster

   syn: transient; short-lived; brief. see transient.
        1913 webster
see also:
transient transitory action 

[2] : WordNet (r) 2.0

transitory
     adj : enduring a very short time; "the ephemeral joys of
           childhood"; "a passing fancy"; "youth's transient
           beauty"; "love is transitory but at is eternal";
           "fugacious blossoms" syn: ephemeral, passing, short-lived,
            transient, fugacious
see also:
ephemeral passing short-lived transient fugacious 

[3] : Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0

97 moby thesaurus words for "transitory":
   able to adapt, adaptable, adjustable, alterable, alterative, brief,
   brittle, capricious, changeable, checkered, circumforaneous,
   corruptible, deciduous, discursive, divagatory, drifting, dying,
   ephemeral, errant, evanescent, ever-changing, fading, fickle,
   fleeting, flexible, flitting, floating, fluid, fly-by-night,
   flying, footloose, footloose and fancy-free, fragile, frail,
   fugacious, fugitive, gadding, gypsy-like, gypsyish, impermanent,
   impetuous, impulsive, inconstant, insubstantial, kaleidoscopic,
   landloping, malleable, many-sided, meandering, metamorphic,
   migrational, migratory, mobile, modifiable, momentary, mortal,
   movable, mutable, nomad, nomadic, nondurable, nonpermanent,
   nonuniform, passing, perishable, permutable, plastic, protean,
   proteiform, rambling, ranging, resilient, roaming, roving, rubbery,
   shifting, short-lived, short-term, straggling, straying, strolling,
   supple, temporal, temporary, traipsing, transient, transitive,
   transmigratory, transubstantiate, undurable, unenduring, unstable,
   vagabond, vagrant, variable, volatile, wandering

[4] : Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856)

transitory. that which lasts but a short time, as transitory facts that 
which may be laid in different places, as a transitory action. 

Transitory >> T Words
Transitory, definition of term: Transitory
transitory_pag1.html