Word.ws English Dictionary

clinamen

US/klaɪˈneɪmən/

clinamen noun: the unpredictable swerve of atoms, introduced as a concept by Lucretius to defend the atomistic doctrine of Epicurus.

Noun

clinamen (plural clinamens or clinamina)

  1. The unpredictable swerve of atoms, introduced as a concept by Lucretius to defend the atomistic doctrine of Epicurus.

Forms of clinamen

pluralclinamens
pluralclinamina

Origin of clinamen

Related to Latin clīnō.

Questions about clinamen

What does clinamen mean?
Clinamen means the unpredictable swerve of atoms, introduced as a concept by Lucretius to defend the atomistic doctrine of Epicurus.
What part of speech is clinamen?
Clinamen is a noun.
How do you pronounce clinamen?
Clinamen is pronounced /klaɪˈneɪmən/ (US).
What is the plural of clinamen?
The plural of clinamen is clinamens.

Words near clinamen in the dictionary

  1. clinacosides
  2. clinafloxacin
  3. clinal
  4. clinality
  5. clinally
  6. clinamen
  7. clinamens
  8. clinamina
  9. clinandria
  10. clinandrial
  11. clinandrium

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: clinamen (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “clinamen.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/clinamen. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.