microcosm
Use Microcosm in a sentence
krəˌkɒzBased on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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| a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question. |
| a stew of meat, vegetables, potatoes, etc. |
microcosm or microcosmos (ˈmaɪkrəʊˌkɒzəm, ˌmaɪkrəʊˈkɒzmɒs) ![[Click for IPA pronunciation guide]](http://static.sfdict.com/dictstatic/g/d/dictionary_questionbutton_default.gif) | |
| —n | |
| 1. | a miniature representation of something, esp a unit, group, or place regarded as a copy of a larger one |
| 2. | man regarded as epitomizing the universe |
| [C15: via Medieval Latin from Greek mikros kosmos little world] | |
| microcosmos or microcosmos | |
| —n | |
| [C15: via Medieval Latin from Greek mikros kosmos little world] | |
| micro'cosmic or microcosmos | |
| —adj | |
| micro'cosmical or microcosmos | |
| —adj | |
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microcosm
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microcosm definition
A representation of something on a much smaller scale. Microcosm means “small world,” and in the thought of the Renaissance, it was applied specifically to human beings, who were considered to be small-scale models of the universe, with all its variety and contradiction. (Compare macrocosm.)
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microcosm
(from Greek mikros kosmos, "little world"), a Western philosophical term designating man as being a "little world" in which the macrocosm, or universe, is reflected. The ancient Greek idea of a world soul (e.g., in Plato) animating the universe had as a corollary the idea of the human body as a miniature universe animated by its own soul. The notion of the microcosm dates, in Western philosophy, from Socratic times (Democritus specifically referred to it)-i.e., from the 5th century BC. Propagated especially by the Neoplatonists, the idea passed to the Gnostics, to the Christian scholastics, to the Jewish Kabbalists, and to such Renaissance philosophers as Paracelsus. The supposed analogy between the whole and its parts served not only to develop a cosmology in which the reality of the individual received due attention but was also fundamental to astrology and other fields in which belief in a metaphysical relationship between man and the rest of nature is postulated. In later philosophy the monadology of G.W. Leibniz presented a comparable view of man and the universe; and, in the 19th century, Rudolf Lotze chose Mikrokosmus as the title of his major work on the theory of knowledge and reality.
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