atomy

¹ American  

[at-uh-mee] / ˈæt ə mi /

noun

• atomies
  plural

1. an atom; mote.

2. a small creature; pygmy.

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atomy ² American  

[at-uh-mee] / ˈæt ə mi /

noun

• atomies
  plural

1. a skeleton.

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atomy ¹ British  

/ ˈætəmɪ /

noun

1. an atom or minute particle

2. a minute creature

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atomy ² British  

/ ˈætəmɪ /

noun

1. an obsolete word for skeleton

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• atomies
  plural

Etymology

Origin of atomy¹

1585–95; singular use of Latin atomī, plural of atomus atom

Origin of atomy²

1590–1600; variant of anatomy (taken as an atomy )

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

atomy atomies

The Wait felt so strange that he took the furry atomy without protest, and popped it into his mouth without any feelings that it was going to be nasty.

From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White

The fog slips ghostlike into a thousand rooms, Whirls over sleeping faces, Spins in an atomy dance round misty street lamps; And blows in cloudy waves over open spaces .

From The House of Dust; a symphony by Conrad Aiken

The laughableness of the thing—this ferocious atomy defying him—struck home to the little man.

From Bob, Son of Battle by Alfred Ollivant

Often she would turn her back upon that wizened atomy of quirks and false ideals, and let her bosom pant to think to-night!—to-night!—to-night!

From Doom Castle by Neil Munro

Think'st thou wisdom came to mankind with the stenchful rocket and the sundered atomy?

From No Great Magic by Fritz Leiber

“Epicurus maintains that everything we see, we see because a fine film of atomies is constantly shed by all matter, a sort of mist of particles which strikes the eye.”

From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves" by M.T. Anderson

So, at least, says Liebig, who states that he found a small piece of matchwood, just extinguished, burst out again into a flame on being immersed in the bubbles given out by these living atomies.

From Glaucus, or the Wonders of the Shore by Charles Kingsley

If we except the rats and cockroaches, and a few such-like atomies, this is the first being which has drawn its first breath on board.

From In Eastern Seas Or, the Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 by J. J. Smith

Two or three of these atomies would hardly have made a square meal for a ladybird, and I should think that a starling after swallowing a thousand would fed very hungry.

From Birds in Town and Village by W. H. (William Henry) Hudson

Thirty-two years since, up against the sun, Seven shapes, thin atomies to lower sight, Labouringly leapt and gained thy gabled height, And four lives paid for what the seven had won.

From Poems on Travel by Various