occhiolism

English

Etymology

Coined by American author and neologist John Koenig, creator of The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, from Italian occhiolino (“little eye”), the name given by inventor Galileo to a prototype microscope in the early 1600s.

Noun

occhiolism (uncountable)

1. (neologism, rare) The awareness of the small scope of one's own perspective and the way it limits one's ability to fully understand the world.
   • 2015, Johnny Close, Eco-Lonely, page 186:

     I've never been consumed by so much occhiolism, I was so small so insignificant.

   • 2015 September 29, Tom Butler-Roberts, “Tommy Fong's Final Farewell”, in York Vision, The University of York, page 11:

     Willow is a building site when I reach the top. It's barely recognisable as the place I had held a vimto-coke in one hand and an optimistic sense of occhiolism in the other merely 24 hours ago. The same people who served me several shots at the now dismantled bar are busying themselves with tearing up the carpet (there was a carpet!?) and in among them all is Tommy Fong, watching over the scene.

   • 2018, Shannon Benna, "Systems and Practices to Produce Stereoscopic Space on Screen", in Image – Action – Space: Situating the Screen in Visual Practice (eds. Luisa Feiersinger, Kathrin Friedrich, & Moritz Queisner), page 143:

     Increased depth in a scene, with the subject in the distance, can make a viewer feel as though the space is vast and provide a sense of occhiolism, while increased depth with the subject and environment filling up the scene can create a sense of claustrophobia.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:occhiolism.