saccade means A rapid movement of the eye (either voluntary or involuntary) from one focus to another. (Often described as a jerky movement, but this word denotes all such quick eye movements, which happen continually, not just exaggerated or weird ones, and not nystagmus.). It carries an Arena rating of 1581, earned across 3 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, saccade ranks #23 of 17,130 for Most Ingenious Words, #2,448 of 17,113 for Most Elegant Words, #2,502 of 17,125 for Most Incisive Words, #2,928 of 17,130 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words.
saccade is pronounced /səˈkɑːd/.
Why “saccade” is a great word
A rapid, ballistic jump of the eyes from one point of fixation to another. From French saccade ("a jerk, a jolt"), from the obsolete French verb saquer ("to pull, to tug"), first attested in English in 1705. Unlike "nystagmus," an involuntary rhythmic tremor, or "smooth pursuit," a fluid, continuous tracking, a saccade is a decisive, singular leap. It is the flicker of a reader’s gaze across a line of text, the snap toward a sudden motion, the precise hop of a violinist’s eyes from score to fingerboard—a mechanism so fundamental that the seamless world we perceive is a quilt of stillness, sewn together by these invisible, urgent threads.
noun
- A rapid movement of the eye (either voluntary or involuntary) from one focus to another. (Often described as a jerky movement, but this word denotes all such quick eye movements, which happen continually, not just exaggerated or weird ones, and not nystagmus.)e.g.“He added the bill with a single saccade of his pulsing eyes.”
- The act of checking a horse quickly with a single strong pull of the reins.
- The sounding of two violin strings together by using a sudden strong pressure of the bow.
- Any sudden jerking movement.
verb
- To make a rapid jerking movement to focus elsewhere.
Words closest in meaning
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