liminality means the fact of being on the border of, or in between, two states. It carries an Arena rating of 1356, earned across 3 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, liminality ranks #2,328 of 14,438 for Most Storied Words, #2,350 of 14,448 for Most Incisive Words, #2,678 of 14,410 for Most Ponderous Words, #3,245 of 14,308 for Most Malleable Words.
Why “liminality” is a great word
The quality of occupying an ambiguous, in-between state, especially during a rite of passage or period of societal change. From the Latin limen ("threshold") + the English adjectival suffix -al + the noun-forming suffix -ity; first attested in English in the 1870s. Unlike "transition," which names the process of change, or "threshold," which denotes a physical boundary, liminality is the disorienting, suspended experience of being on that boundary. It is the dislocated quiet of an airport terminal at three a.m., the hushed expectancy of a hospital corridor, the unreal feeling of a train journey between one life and another—the palpable ache of being neither here nor there, where the old self has been shed but the new one has not yet been assumed, and time itself seems to hold its breath.
Etymology
From liminal + -ity.
noun
- The fact of being on the border of, or in between, two states.
- The state or quality of ambiguity which exists in the middle stage of certain events or rituals (such as a rite of passage or a society-wide revolution), during which the participating individual or group no longer holds its pre-ritual status but has not yet attained the status it will hold when the ritual has been completed.e.g.“The second way Novalis seeks to repotentize his thought is by striving to evoke feelings conducive to liminality.”
Words closest in meaning
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