I don't think economists or politicians every properly defines transitory in this context, though the concept was used as a marketing play to paint a picture of prices coming back down.
We saw that in very limited cases, but prices broadly are still higher than before and it isn't realistic to expect prices to comeback down The only real argument is if we compare against absolute highs in price shocks due to panic toilet paper buying, baby formula production issues, etc.
So... none of that is correct. "Inflation" is a growth exponent, not an absolute measure of prices. No one ever promised "prices would come down", because that would be deflation (a negative exponent).
Inflation is just a rescaling. Everyone loves to say it's not, but it is. Prices are higher and wages are higher and assets values are higher. It all happens together, though not in perfect lockstep.
If people wanted to complain about real (where "real" means "inflation-corrected") wages falling, they would be screaming about it, because that would be terrible. Except that real wages are INCREASING and have been pretty steadily all through the inflation burst.
We saw that in very limited cases, but prices broadly are still higher than before and it isn't realistic to expect prices to comeback down The only real argument is if we compare against absolute highs in price shocks due to panic toilet paper buying, baby formula production issues, etc.