physiognomy
noun
Simple meaning
The art or pseudoscience of deducing the predominant temper and other characteristic qualities of the mind from the outward appearance.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
fihzeeuhgnuhmeeIPA pronunciation (US)
fɪziəɡnəmi
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
The art or pseudoscience of deducing the predominant temper and other characteristic qualities of the mind from the outward appearance, especially from the features of the face.
The face or countenance, with respect to the temper of the mind; particular configuration, cast, or expression of countenance, as denoting character.
The art of telling fortunes by inspection of the features.
The human face (`kisser' and `smiler' and `mug' are informal terms for `face' and `phiz' is British)
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The art or pseudoscience of deducing the predominant temper and other characteristic qualities of the mind from the outward appearance, especially from the features of the face.
Used this way, physiognomy is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Synonyms
Sense: art
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.