liminal
Psychology. of, relating to, or situated at the limen, the threshold at which a stimulus begins to produce an effect: The subjects' responses to liminal stimulation differed, with some responding and some not.
of or relating to a transitional or intermediate state, stage, or period: Confusion can strike in the liminal states between waking and sleeping.The liminal period between adolescence and adulthood is a challenging place to be.Edwardian servants were liminal figures, existing in both upper- and lower-class society.: See also liminal space.
Origin of liminal
1Words Nearby liminal
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
How to use liminal in a sentence
What the scientists see in them is the faintest sign of a liminal, maybe dreamlike, consciousness.
The hunt for hidden signs of consciousness in unreachable patients | Russ Juskalian | August 25, 2021 | MIT Technology ReviewThey’d hiked directly over the top of a bear den and now dangled in the liminal space between encounter and attack.
More adventure film projects followed, and in them, Morton found his place in bike racing, a liminal space between being a WorldTour pro and a world adventurer.
Meet Lachlan Morton, The Man Who Rode the Tour de France Route Solo | agintzler | July 13, 2021 | Outside OnlineThey’re in this liminal, in-between place, this not-yet-to-be place.
The strange and lonely transformation of first-time mothers in the pandemic | Caitlin Gibson | June 3, 2021 | Washington PostThe success of mutual aid efforts over the last year is a reminder, I think, that in a liminal time like the one we’re in, we must link arms.
These Women Are Transforming What Climate Leadership Looks Like. Here's What They Learned From the Pandemic | Elijah Wolfson | April 20, 2021 | Time
This may be technically expressed by saying that the liminal intensity (Schwelle) is raised during sleep.
Illusions | James SullyThe supra-liminal returns into harmony with the subliminal; the individual life and the mass-life are reunited.
The Drama of Love and Death | Edward CarpenterMeantime we are aware also of a substratum of fragmentary automatic, liminal ideas, of which we take small account.
Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death | Frederick W. H. Myers
British Dictionary definitions for liminal
/ (ˈlɪmɪnəl) /
psychol relating to the point (or threshold) beyond which a sensation becomes too faint to be experienced
Origin of liminal
1Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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