Word of the Day:
physiognomy
What It Means
The art or pseudoscience of deducing the predominant temper and other characteristic qualities of the mind from the outward appearance, especially from the features of the face.
The face or countenance, with respect to the temper of the mind; particular configuration, cast, or expression of countenance, as denoting character.
The art of telling fortunes by inspection of the features.
the physiognomy of a plant; of a meteor
Physiognomy in Context
“During a period of peak popularity in the 19ᵗʰ Century, the field of physiognomy became more sinister and racist than its quirky manifestation during the time of ancient Greeks.”
Did You Know?
Inherited from Middle English phisonomie, from Anglo-Norman phisenomie, Middle French phisonomie et al., ultimately from Late Latin physiognomia, from Ancient Greek φυσιογνωμία (phusiognōmía, “physiology”), from φύσις (phúsis, “physique, appearance”) + γνώμη (gnṓmē, “means of knowing”). Middle English phisonomie would regularly develop into *physnomy /ˈfɪznəmi/ (forms of this type are common in Early Modern English, such as fisnomie in All's Well that Ends Well); the modern spelling and pronunciation are due to learned influence.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: physiognomy (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the word and reformatted its meaning, examples and origin.
Cite this entry: “physiognomy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/physiognomy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
