Microcosm
noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Human nature or the human body as representative of the wider universe; man considered as a miniature counterpart of divine or universal nature.
"The Christian humanists were emphatic in their demand that a man who wishes to understand himself must realize that he is a little world that reflects on a smaller scale the larger world of the universe. […] On the other hand, the whole idea of man as a microcosm was questioned by those who were not in sympathy with the Christian humanists."
- 2 a miniature model of something wordnet
- 3 The human body; a person. obsolete
"If you see this in the Map of my Microcosme, followes it that I am knowne well enough too?"
- 4 A smaller system which is seen as representative of a larger one.
"Near-synonyms: epitome, paradigm, model"
- 5 A small natural ecosystem; an artificial ecosystem set up as an experimental model.
"The method is relatively labour intensive (24-30 microcosms are run) and more difficult to interpret when compared with other microcosm methods (Shannon et al. 1986; Cairns & Cherry 1993)."
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"The comment section is a microcosm of the larger cultural debate taking place."
Etymology
From French microcosme, from Latin microcosmus, from Ancient Greek μικρός (mikrós, “small”) + κόσμος (kósmos, “universe, order”); micro- + -cosm.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.