Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Of, relating to, or marked by extraordinarily detailed and vivid recall of visual images.
Wiktionary
- adj. Pertaining to a memory or mental image of perfect clarity, as though actually visible; or to a person able to see such memories.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. of visual imagery of almost photographic accuracy
Etymologies
- From German eidetisch, from Ancient Greek εἰδητικός (eidetikos), from εἶδος (eidos, "form"). (Wiktionary)
- German eidetisch, from Greek eidos, form; see weid- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Some people have what are called eidetic visualizations.”
“Stile was good at this, in human terms-but how could he be sure that Noh did not possess long-term eidetic memory, and be virtually invinci - ble?”
“Opponents say he has an eidetic or photographic memory ( 'eidetic' - that's at least 83 on a triple).”
“Despite its age, this remains a useful literature review, especially because it covers not only mental imagery in the narrower sense in which the term is usually used today (what Richardson calls “memory imagery”), but also other more or less distantly related quasi-perceptual phenomena such as eidetic imagery, hypnagogic imagery, hallucinations, and after-images.”
“I have at least ten times that many, and half of them are behind the other half and they keep changing places every time we move, which recently has been once a year, so I'm fortunate to have the kind of eidetic book-memory Tatyana talks about.”
“The characters are all characters--that is, people with distinctive traits and personalities: The baby's a smart-ass biter, Violet's an inventor, Klaus a book fiend who must have a kind of eidetic memory to put to use what he's read, their aunt a grammarian paranoic, and a distant uncle, Count Olaf, will stop at nothing to gain the three children's fortune.”
“Inoue and Matsuzawa claim that Ayumu has a photographic or "eidetic" memory that allows him to keep an accurate, detailed image of a complex scene in a very short time.”
“Photographic memory is often referred under a variety of other names such as eidetic memory or total recall.”
“I take out the Quest fob and look at it, with the eidetic memory of the fire-starting GT-R resonating in my head.”
The Wall Street Journal: For Your Big-Box Shopping, Drive a Big Box
“A related concept is eidetic imagery, in which a person claims to "see" a detailed visual scene that is no longer visible.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘eidetic’.
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Words
phantasmagoria, eviscerate, avast, simulacrum, varicose, oblique, gestalt, ersatz, vernal, vivace, stellate, synecdoche and 330 more...
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phrontistery - e
from phrontistery.info
ephod, epact, eozoic, eonism, ensiform, ensanguine, enoptromancy, enounce, enosimania, ennomic, enneagon, eolith and 616 more...
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Davenport
words looked up recently from reading Guy Davenport
flenite, sampan, provender, comitatus, cycladic, surd, scialytic, lignite, plangencies, fugal, zamindary, macaque and 112 more...
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wallace
Remington, Windsor, prorector, wen, aver, mottle, seltzer, tepee, lapidary, effete, sotto, presbyopia and 355 more...
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Words build meanings from origins( et...
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 2046 more...
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Ayatollah's list
Trinkets of lexical goodness.
floccinaucinihili..., quomodocunquize, curmudgeon, illaqueate, ipsissimosity, heterochthonous, hakenkreuz, forisfamiliate, appropinquate, apodyopsis, baryphony, cachinnate and 146 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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Metawords
Talking about talking, writing about writing, etc.
epizeuxis, tautological, aptote, bibliophagist, parataxis, scriptorium, aposiopesis, variorum, chantefable, boustrophedon, psellism, adoxography and 51 more...
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MiaLuthien's list ♥
gambit, prehensile, coquetry, impunity, genuflect, ensconce, clavicle, delude, beget, castigate, life caching, convoluted and 478 more...
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Infinite Jest
Words taken from Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace.
prorector, monograph, post-fourier, snuffle, rototremble, creatus, enfilade, subanimalistic, balletic, espadrilles, leonine, cirri and 1153 more...
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Mnemosyne
Elicityscapes. Re-re-running; get, put.
"'Member dat?"
"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents."
-...linkage, peg, ceremony, memo, mnemosyne, mnemonic, memento, anchor, compose, draw, picture, imagine and 101 more...
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Stumbled Words
A list of words that I stumbled upon while reading.
penumbra, prolix, propitious, resplendence, sepulchral, Weltschmerz, apparition, brigand, probity, chalice, paroxysm, pallor and 160 more...
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chairmanK's list
eristic, eidetic, reticular, legshow, phytomorphic, ophidian, autumnal, frisson, rhizomatic, pulchritude, lubricious, veridical and 110 more...
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Uncle John’s Interesting Words
Words I find interesting.
abecedarius, acomoclitic, aperçu, apophenia, aspic, bêtise, bhang, callipygian, calque, carking, cataphract, ceruminous and 97 more...
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ElRojo
R. Peter Jackson's list
cantillation, jackstaff, pullulate, whoremonger, colloquy, batman, anathema, idiosyncratic, facilitation, sympathy, empathy, satrap and 135 more...
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thewrongwithme
Tweets
Looking for tweets for eidetic.
jaime_d from essay "Jonathan Williams" by Guy Davenport Jan 18, 2010
cryptofascistbbq From the Greek Eidos (εἶδος), meaning "image," "form," or "shape." It also can have the meaning of "essence", as in Husserlian phenomenology's "eidetic reduction", which is a method for finding the essential characteristics of our experience of objects. Nov 1, 2009
johanna eidetic can also refer to photographic visual memory. or: intuitively apprehended. Jul 29, 2009