microcosmos

Etymology

From micro- + cosmos.

microcosmos means A small or microscopic cosmos; a microcosm. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 86 out of 100.

Why this word is great

MICROCOSMOS — [Noun] A small, self-contained system understood as a perfectly ordered miniature universe, an analogue to a greater whole. From the Medieval Latin microcosmus, from the Greek mikros kosmos, meaning "little world" or "small order." Unlike "microcosm" (its common, diluted descendant) or "macrocosm" (its vast, encompassing opposite), microcosmos implies a hermetic and law-bound replica, a complete totality in miniature. It is the teeming city of an ant colony under a stone; the swirling, predatory universe of a single drop of pond water; or the verdant, rain-cycling world sealed under glass—a quiet testament to the pattern-seeking heart of existence, the profound comfort of finding the whole contained in something you can hold.

noun

A small or microscopic cosmos; a microcosm.“So the double men of Aristophanes are microcosmoi (p. 566); as the world is divided, so are they.”