amorphous
English edit
Etymology edit
From Ancient Greek ἄμορφος (ámorphos, “without form, shapeless, deformed”) (itself from ἀ- (a-, “without”) + μορφή (morphḗ, “form”) + -ous.
Pronunciation edit
Adjective edit
amorphous (comparative more amorphous, superlative most amorphous)
- Lacking a definite form or clear shape.
- Synonyms: formless, shapeless; see also Thesaurus:amorphous
- The enormous pile of spaghetti landed on the floor in an amorphous heap.
- (by extension) Being without definite character or nature.
- 1920 November 9, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, chapter 1, in Women in Love, New York, N.Y.: Privately printed [by Thomas Seltzer] for subscribers only, →OCLC:
- Gudrun, new from her life in Chelsea and Sussex, shrank cruelly from this amorphous ugliness of a small colliery town in the Midlands. Yet forward she went, through the whole sordid gamut of pettiness, the long amorphous, gritty street.
- 2023 September 27, John Kampfner, “German politics has a built-in firewall against the far right. It’s beginning to crack”, in The Guardian[1], →ISSN:
- And people talking all the time about the AfD is just what it wants: to foster the impression that the others are ganging up against it. The “authentic” voice of “real people” v the amorphous elite.
- (by extension) Lacking organization or unity.
- (physics) In the non-crystalline solid state of a typically crystalline solid.
- (set theory, of a set) Infinite and not the disjoint union of two infinite subsets.
Derived terms edit
Translations edit
lacking a definite form or clear shape
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being without definite character or nature
lacking organization or unity
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physics: in the non-crystalline state of solid
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Further reading edit
amorphous solid on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
