provisional

provisional 1 Provisional, tentative are comparable when they mean not final or definitive.

Something provisional is adopted only for the time being and will be discarded when the final or definitive form is established or when the need which called it into being no longer exists. Provisional, therefore, is used to describe something made or devised while its permanent successor is in process of formation or construction

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a provisional government

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these provisional assemblies would decide the conditions under which elections should be held— Cronyn

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or when circumstances prevent introduction of a corresponding definitive or permanent thing; thus, a provisional order of a government agency is one subject to review and revision by the legislative branch; a provisional license or certificate (as of a driver or a teacher) is one destined to be replaced by a permanent license or certificate if the holder maintains certain standards or meets certain additional qualifications.

Something tentative is of the nature of a trial or experiment or serves as a test of a thing's practicability or feasibility

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the awakening of the modern world to consciousness, and its first tentative, then fuller, then rapturous expression of it— J. R. Lowell

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it would be folly to treat the first tentative results as final— Jeans

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Maria was entranced with this reverent gesture, and her tentative approval of her cousin settled into awed respect— Hervey

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Analogous words: *temporary: conditional, *dependent, contingent

Antonyms: definitive

2 *temporary, ad interim, acting, supply