Contemporary means belonging to the same time as something else. A contemporary account, contemporary with the war, his contemporaries.
A contemporary account is one written at the time and is worth far more to a historian than a later one. As a noun, somebody's contemporaries are the people alive at the same time. The other sense is modern: contemporary art, contemporary dance, contemporary design — which means of the present rather than of any particular time. Note that the two senses can collide: contemporary sources about a modern subject is genuinely ambiguous.
1adjectivecontemporaryBelonging to the same time as something else.
“Shakespeare was contemporary with Queen Elizabeth the First.”
2adjectivepresentModern; of the present time.
“The gallery shows contemporary art by young local painters.”
contemporary is a relation in time.
Medieval Latin contemporarius is con-, together, plus tempus, time. Temporary, tempo and temporal come from the same word, and contemporary is simply sharing a time.
Medieval Latin
contemporārius
English, today
contemporary
Built from
Borrowed from Medieval Latin contemporārius. From Medieval Latin contemporārius, from Latin con- (“with, together”) + temporārius, an adjective derived from tempus (“time”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA