Word.ws English Dictionary

viewquake

/ˈvjuːkweɪk/

viewquake noun: a sudden drastic shift in someone's view on the world or a particular subject.

Noun

viewquake (plural viewquakes)

  1. (informal) A sudden drastic shift in someone's view on the world or a particular subject.
    • This summer, though, one of Hanson's "viewquakes," as he likes to call them, became a genuine national sensation. The only problem was, everybody hated it. Hanson's brainchild was roundly condemned by several U.S. Senators, derided by the likes of Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and...2003 September 15, Jeremy Kahn, “The Man Who Would Have Us Bet On Terrorism—Not To Mention Discard Democracy And Cryogenically Freeze Our Heads—May Have A Point (About The Betting, We Mean)”, in...
    • The section raises more questions than it answers. Most of all, [Allan H.] Meltzer never lets on that the crisis caused a “viewquake” within both monetarism and minimalist approaches to bank supervision.2010 December, Tyler Cowen, “A History of the Federal Reserve. Volume 2. Book One: 1951–1969 by Allan H. Meltzer; A History of the Federal Reserve. Volume 2. Book Two: 1970–1986 by Allan H. Meltzer”...

Examples of viewquake in a sentence

  • This summer, though, one of Hanson's "viewquakes," as he likes to call them, became a genuine national sensation.2003 September 15, Jeremy Kahn, “The Man Who Would Have Us Bet On Terrorism—Not To Mention Discard Democracy And Cryogenically Freeze Our...
  • Or you could find one that puts ideas in front of you that you'd never considered before, leading to a 'viewquake'.2020 November 18, Frances Cook, “Frances Cook: How carefully calibrated risk-taking can lead to financial stability”, in The New Zealand...

Forms of viewquake

pluralviewquakes

Origin of viewquake

From view + quake, modelled after earthquake. Coined by American economist Robin Hanson.

Questions about viewquake

What does viewquake mean?
Viewquake means a sudden drastic shift in someone's view on the world or a particular subject.
How do you use viewquake in a sentence?
This summer, though, one of Hanson's "viewquakes," as he likes to call them, became a genuine national sensation.
What part of speech is viewquake?
Viewquake is a noun.
How do you pronounce viewquake?
Viewquake is pronounced /ˈvjuːkweɪk/.
What is the plural of viewquake?
The plural of viewquake is viewquakes.

Words near viewquake in the dictionary

  1. viewpoints frameworks
  2. viewport
  3. viewported
  4. viewporting
  5. viewports
  6. viewquake
  7. viewquakes
  8. views
  9. views from nowhere
  10. views of frankpledge
  11. views someone's etchings

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: viewquake (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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