Word.ws English Dictionary

Thatcher effect

Thatcher effect proper noun: the phenomenon whereby it is more difficult to detect local feature changes in an upside-down face, despite identical changes being obvious in an upright face.

thatcher effect: the phenomenon whereby it is more difficult to detect local feature changes in an upside-down face,...
Image: Alex Dodge, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Proper noun

Thatcher effect

  1. The phenomenon whereby it is more difficult to detect local feature changes in an upside-down face, despite identical changes being obvious in an upright face.

Origin of Thatcher effect

Named after British prime minister Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013), whose image was used as an example.

Questions about Thatcher effect

What does Thatcher effect mean?
Thatcher effect means the phenomenon whereby it is more difficult to detect local feature changes in an upside-down face, despite identical changes being obvious in an upright face.
What part of speech is Thatcher effect?
Thatcher effect is a proper noun.

Words near Thatcher effect in the dictionary

  1. thatch-rake
  2. thatch-rakes
  3. Thatcham
  4. thatched
  5. thatcher
  6. Thatcher effect
  7. Thatcher illusion
  8. Thatcher's children
  9. thatcher's rake
  10. thatcher's rakes
  11. Thatcheresque

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Thatcher effect (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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