phenomenon

noun

1. 1

   A thing or being, event or process, perceptible through senses; or a fact or occurrence thereof.

   The year 1866 was signalised by a remarkable incident, a mysterious and inexplicable phenomenon, which doubtless no one has yet forgotten.

   The Indians, making a hasty inference from a trivial phenomenon, arrived unawares at a probably correct conclusion.

   In the sense in which we are using the term, the intellectuals are in fact a fairly new phenomenon of history.

   It is important to note the differences between hurricanes and earthquakes — hurricanes are a meteorological phenomenon while earthquakes are geological. Both hurricanes and earthquakes can produce damage by flooding of coastal areas, but a hurricane's storm surge and a tsunami associated with an earthquake are entirely different phenomena.

2. 2

   A knowable thing or event (e.g. by inference, especially in science).

   An electromagnetic phenomenon.

3. 3

   A kind or type of phenomenon (sense 1 or 2).

   A volcanic eruption is an impressive phenomenon.

4. 4

   Appearance; a perceptible aspect of something that is mutable.

   I verily believe that in the Moon there are no rains, for if Clouds should gather in any part thereof, as they do about the Earth, they would thereupon hide from our sight some of those things, which we with the Telescope behold in the Moon, and in a word, would some way or other change its Phœnomenon.

5. 5

   A fact or event considered very unusual, curious, or astonishing by those who witness it.

   The phenomenon of a huge blazing fire, upon the opposite bank of the glen, again presented itself to the eye of the watchman. . . . He resolved to examine more nearly the object of his wonder.

6. 6

   A wonderful or very remarkable person or thing.

   "This, sir," said Mr Vincent Crummles, bringing the maiden forward, "this is the infant phenomenon—Miss Ninetta Crummles."

   But, all the same, you're a phenomenon, and as queer a phenomenon as you are a blackguard.

7. 7

   An experienced object whose constitution reflects the order and conceptual structure imposed upon it by the human mind (especially by the powers of perception and understanding).

   Every "phenomenon" must be, at any rate, partly subjective or dependent on the subject.

   The Kantian phenomenon is the real as we are compelled to think it.

Forms

plural

phenomena, phenomenons