liminal

Definitions  ·  Examples  ·  Pronunciations  ·  Etymologies  ·  Related  ·  Statistics  ·  Comments (6)  · 
“
Sometimes China's tolerance for the liminal is tactical.

View all »
Definitions (3)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (2)

  1. Pertaining to the threshold or entrance; hence, relating to the beginning or first stage; inceptive; inchoative. Every stimulus must reach a certain intensity before any appreciable sensation results. This point is known as the threshold or liminal intensity. J. Sully, Outlines of Psychol., p. 114. The liminal difficulties cannot be evaded without the most disastrous consequences to the body of the exposition. Mind, IX. 428.
  2. Specifically In psychophysics, pertaiuing to the stimulus limen or differential limen. See limen. We may also introduce the concept of the limen, defining the just noticeable deviation from indifference as a liminal pleasantness or unpleasantness. O. Külpe (trans.), Outlines of Psychol., p. 243. The average liminal value obtained in these preliminary series gives us a norm or standard for the later work. E. B. Titchener, Exper. Psychol., I. i. 85.

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet

Toggle elsewhere links Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples

  • "Give it to the children, " he said, and then she just wept and he held her. —  Sharpe's Prey
  • The remaining gold - he reckoned it was worth about nine thousand pounds - would be returned to the Bank of England and the Honourable John Lavisser could conveniently be blamed for all that was missing. —  Sharpe's Prey
  • Sometimes China's tolerance for the liminal is tactical. —  Foreign Policy In Focus
 

Tags

Sign up or sign in to add tags.

Stats

Liminal has been looked up 393 times, favorited 6 times, listed 81 times, and commented on 6 times.

stop updating
On Twitter

Photos from

flickr images

Etymologies (1)

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. from Latin limen (limin-), threshold (cf. eliminate), + -al.
 

Pronunciations
Record your own »

If you'd like to prod us on getting a pronunciation for this word, sign in (or sign up) and let us know.

Charts
frequency chart

Bubble size: how much this word was used in a year

Bubble height: used more or less than expected, vs. all uses evenly distributed

You can expect to see this word about once a year.

Recent Lookups

vulture · old · Adaptation · disputatious · slatternly

Recent Favorites

TelePalmter · Espoo · stick-to-it-iveness · supine · doxastic

Recent Pronunciations

milosrdenstvi · lichen-covered · futon · sagacity · monoragngocious