kaleidoscope
pronunciation
How to pronounce kaleidoscope in British English:
UK [kəˈlaɪdəskəʊp]
How to pronounce kaleidoscope in American English:
US [kəˈlaɪdəskoʊp]
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- Noun:
- an optical toy in a tube; it produces symmetrical patterns as bits of colored glass are reflected by mirrors
Word Origin
- kaleidoscope
- kaleidoscope: [19] Greek kalós meant ‘beautiful’ (it was related to Sanskrit kalyāna ‘beautiful’). It has given English a number of compound words: calligraphy [17], for instance, etymologically ‘beautiful writing’, callipygian [18], ‘having beautiful buttocks’, and callisthenics [19], literally ‘beauty and strength’. The Scottish physicist Sir David Brewster used it, along with Greek eidos ‘shape’ and the element -scope denoting ‘observation instrument’, to name a device he invented in 1817 for looking at rotating patterns of coloured glass – a ‘beautiful-shape viewer’.=> calligraphy, callisthenics
- kaleidoscope (n.)
- 1817, literally "observer of beautiful forms," coined by its inventor, Scottish scientist David Brewster (1781-1868), from Greek kalos "beautiful" (see Callisto) + eidos "shape" (see -oid) + -scope, on model of telescope, etc. They sold by the thousands in the few years after their invention, but Brewster failed to secure a patent. Figurative meaning "constantly changing pattern" is first attested 1819 in Lord Byron, whose publisher had sent him one of the toys. As a verb, from 1891. A kaleidophone (1827) was invented by English physicist Sir Charles Wheatstone (1802-1875) to make sound waves visible.
Example
- 1. Turning the page here is like twisting a kaleidoscope .
- 2. Er , with closed long e , joined the kaleidoscope and sometimes became ir .
- 3. Here are further glimpses of the davos kaleidoscope .
- 4. We rode along the valley of the butterflies , millions of them forming fluttering clouds that we passed through , like riding in a kaleidoscope .
- 5. Higher education will have to be recast to reduce the proportion of time spent on specialisation : this would enable an easier response to shifting skill requirements as the kaleidoscope turns .