caligo means dimness or obscurity of sight, caused by a speck on the cornea.
Why “caligo” is a great word
A dimness or obscurity of sight, or a large tropical butterfly whose wings bear the colors of that same obscurity. Borrowed from Latin cālīgō ("darkness, mist, fog"). Doublet of garua. Unlike obscuritas, which is the dark of hidden things, or tenebrae, the profound and ominous shadow, caligo is the specific failure of clarity itself—a veil upon the senses. It is the milk-river fog across a winter highway, the bathroom mirror after a scalding shower, the sudden, swimming gray when you stand too quickly; the world not gone, but unreachably softened, as though seen through the wing of its own namesake butterfly.
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin cālīgō (“darkness”). Doublet of garua.
noun
- dimness or obscurity of sight, caused by a speck on the cornea
- A butterfly of the genus Caligo.
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