microcosmosn.
/ˌmʌɪkrə(ʊ)ˈkɒzmɒs/, U.S. /ˈˌmaɪkrəˈkɑzməs/, /ˈˌmaɪkrəˈkɑzˌmoʊs/ 1. = microcosm n. 1a.
ΘΚΠ
the world > people > person > [noun] > as pattern of the universe
less worlda1387
microcosmosa1500
petty world1602
c1175 Ormulum (Burchfield transcript) l. 17595 Forr þi mahht tu nemmnenn mann Affterr grikkisshe spæche. Mycrocossmos. þatt nemmnedd iss. Affterr ennglisshe spæche. Þe little werelld.]
a1500 (c1477) T. Norton Ordinal of Alchemy (BL Add.) (1975) 1718 Wherfore a-monge creaturis these ij alone Be callid Microcrosmos [read Microcosmos], man & oure stone.
1570 J. Dee in H. Billingsley tr. Euclid Elements Geom. Math. Præf. sig. ciiij The description of him, who is the Lesse world: and, from the beginning, called Microcosmus (that is. The Lesse World.).
1603 J. Florio tr. M. de Montaigne Ess. ii. xii. 311 They have thence had reason to name it [sc. man's Nature] Microcosmos, or little world.
1631 tr. J. Ghesel Rule of Health sig. B4 The circumstances both of the Macro- & Microcosmus, the greater and lesser world.
a1826 S. T. Coleridge Marginalia 20 July in Coll. Wks. (1980) XII. 671 Eye! the Micranthrope thou in the marvellous Microcosmos!
1854 Abstr. Papers Royal Soc. 1850–54 6 242 Man is the Microcosmus and centre of this creation.
1887 R. Browning Parleyings in Wks. (1888–94) XVI. 269 Shall Man, Microcosmos, to claim the conception Of grandeur, of beauty, in thought, word or deed?
1942 Far Eastern Q. 2 15 The primary notion which we shall have to deal with is the belief in the parallelism between Macrocosmos and Microcosmos, between the universe and the world of men.
1963 Jrnl. Hist. Ideas 24 460 Herakleitos regards social order as a Microcosmus in which the universal order, the Macrocosmus, is epitomized.
1964 S. Bellow Herzog (1965) 182 Three thousand million human beings exist, each with some possessions, each a microcosmos, each infinitely precious.
1972 Philos. & Phenomenol. Res. 33 164 One cannot draw an analogy between the macrocosmos of nature and the microcosmos of man without assuming that Reason and its laws in the context of nature, and Reason and its laws in the context of human reality mean the same thing.
ΚΠ
a1500 (c1477) T. Norton Ordinal of Alchemy (BL Add.) (1975) 1718 Wherfore a-monge creaturis these ij alone Be callid Microcrosmos [read Microcosmos], man & oure stone.
a1550 (c1477) T. Norton Ordinal of Alchemy (Sloane 1873) (1975) 2510 (MED) Noble auctours..Callide oure stone Micocrosmos [read Microcosmos]..For his composicion is..Like to this worlde.
3. = microcosm n. 2a.
ΘΚΠ
the world > space > extension in space > measurable spatial extent > smallness > [noun] > that which is small > a small thing > microcosm or microworld
microcosmos1562
microcosm1590
petty world1602
worldkin1834
microworld1923
1562 R. Eden Let. in E. Arber First Three Eng. Bks. on Amer. (1885) p. xliv/1 An experiment, wrought by arte to the similitude of the vniuersall frame of the worlde..and maye therfore in my iudgement, more woorthely be cauled Michrocosmos, then eyther man or any other creature.
1587 R. Greene Euphues sig. H3 This citty was Microcosmos, a little Worlde, in respect of the Cytties of Greece.
1600 R. Kittowe Loues Load-starre sig. E3 Palermo..was once accounted the glorious Scicilian Metropolis, shining in his ornaments like an illusterous Mycrocosmus.
1845 R. Ford Hand-bk. Travellers in Spain I. iii. 338 This microcosmus [sc. Gibraltar], where all creeds and nations meet.
1895 Bull. Torrey Bot. Club 22 195 The two symbionts form a microcosmos which is enabled to perform the necessary life functions which were originally inherent in both.
1940 Philos. & Phenomenol. Res. 1 85 The essence of nature comes into appearance with a similar frankness and certainty in the microcosmos of his [sc. an artist's] work as in the macrocosmos of the universe.
1960 R. D. Laing Divided Self xi. 197 It is the patient's life in her own interpersonal microcosmos that is the kernel of any psychiatric clinical biography.
1994 Jrnl. Asian Stud. 53 994 Clifford Sather's extensive..treatment of ritual anchored in the context of the longhouse as microcosmos.
4. = microcosm n. 4.
ΚΠ
1878 Manufacturer & Builder July 158/1 The microscope reveals to us only the portals of a microcosmos, of which inductive reasoning, based on the latest revelations of physics and chemistry, gives us the knowledge of an infinity of another order.
1893 19th Cent. Aug. 252 The molecule thus becomes a particle of the universe on a microscopic scale—a microcosmos which lives the same life.
1919 Science 12 Sept. 252/2 If such a theory is substantiated, a link between the extreme sciences of the macrocosmos and microcosmos, astrophysics and subatomic physics, will be established.
1989 P. C. W. Davies New Physics i. 2/1 Relativistic quantum field theory is the starting point for almost all current attempts to provide a fundamental description of subatomic particles. It is not an easy subject to understand, but it is so central to modern thinking about the microcosmos that I regard its emphasis in this volume as mandatory.
This is a new entry (OED Third Edition, December 2001; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.a1500- to come a stinker
- to come about
- to come abroad
- to come across
- to come across with
- to come afoul of
- to expound concerning
- to expound of
- to express a quantity in terms of
- to express in terms of
- to express volumes
- to extend a call
- to extend an invoice
- to extent
- to extract
- to extract a quantity
- to extract forth
- to extract the michael
- to extract the michael out of
- to extract the root of a number or quantity
- to extravagate it
- to exuberate in
- to exuberate into
- to eye over
- to eye up