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Word of the Day Archive
Wednesday December 20, 2000

microcosm \MY-kruh-koz-uhm\, noun:
1. A little world. Hence, man or human nature as a supposed epitome of the world or universe (compare macrocosm).
2. A smaller, representative system having analogies to a larger system.

The monarch and his followers thought of the court as a microcosm of how the kingdom ought to be, the harmonious expression of a social order centred on the monarch.
-- John Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination

There is a classic Jimmy Stewart movie, Magic Town, about "Grandview," a small town in the Midwest that is a perfect statistical microcosm of the United States, a place where the citizens' opinions match perfectly with Gallup polls of the entire nation.
-- James S. Fishkin, The Voice of the People

New York saw itself as a quasi-independent political and cultural entity that was both a microcosm of and a model for the nation as a whole.
-- Robert A. M. Stern, New York 1880

Microcosm comes from Greek mikros kosmos, "small world."

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for microcosm

 

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