Etymology

From , from ; from , originally ablative of ; hence, by measure, "just now". See also mode.

The Middle French term was coined in the 14th century, as a noun as referring to a person of the then-present time as opposed to antiquity. Adjectival use in the sense of "of the present time" dates to the 15th century.
This meaning is inherited from post-classical (5th century) Latin usage of modernus "of the present time", in medieval (12th century) Latin designating an "incumbent", a person currently holding office.

The OED gives 1485 as the date of the first attestation of the adjective in English, in the meaning of "current", without the implication of "as opposed to the remote past". This usage is still recorded for the mid 18th century, (in the phrase the first and modern President of the said Society).

The first recorded usage of the adjective in the sense of either "as opposed to antiquity" or "not old-fashioned or obsolete" dates to the late 16th century.

Usage in reference to a person holding up-to-date tastes or opinions, embracing new ideas, liberal-minded, in particular in "modern woman" or "modern man", originates in the 18th century and becomes current in the 19th.

The term's current close association with "modern art" dates to the 19th century, as does the usage of the term in zoology and geology, contrasting "modern" not with classical antiquity but with the remote past on the evolutionary or geological time scales.

Noun

1. Someone who lives in modern times.
   • 1956: Even though we moderns can never crawl inside the skin of the ancient and think and feel as he did..., we must as historians make the attempt. — John Albert Wilson, The Culture of Ancient Egypt, p. 144.

Adjective

1. modern