Word of the Day

Saturday, April 29, 2006

microcosm

\MY-kruh-koz-uhm\ , noun;

A little world. Hence, man or human nature as a supposed epitome of the world or universe (compare macrocosm).

A smaller, representative system having analogies to a larger system.

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Quotes:

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

Origin:

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