visible | Search Online Etymology Dictionary

98 entries found.

1640s, "faint light visible in the sky at night," from night + light (n.). As "small light used in rooms at night to keep them from total darkness" from 1851.

ultraviolet (adj.)

"beyond the violet end of the visible spectrum," 1840, from ultra- "beyond" + violet. Ultra-red (1870) was a former name for what now is called infra-red.

panoptic (adj.)

"all-seeing," 1826, from Greek panoptēs "all-seeing," from pan- "all" (see pan-) + optos "seen, visible" (from PIE root *okw- "to see"). Related: Panoptical.

steeplechase (n.)

1793 (earlier steeplehunt, 1772), from steeple + chase (n.). Originally an open-country horse race with a visible church steeple as a goal.

tracer (n.)

c. 1500, "one who tracks or searches," agent noun from verb form of trace (n.1). Meaning "bullet whose course is made visible" is from 1910.

pixelation (n.)

also pixellation, graphics display effect in which individual pixels (small, square single-colored display elements that comprise the image) are visible, 1991, from pixel + -ation.

enoptomancy (n.)

divination by means of a mirror, 1855, from Greek enoptos, literally "seen in," from en- "in" (from PIE root *en "in") + optos "seen, visible" (from PIE root *okw- "to see") + -mancy.

topless (adj.)

of women, "bare-breasted," 1966, from top (n.1) + -less. Earlier it was used of men's bathing suits (1937) and women's (1964). Earliest sense is "without a visible summit; immeasurably high" (1580s).

Branwen

fem. proper name, from Welsh bran "raven" + (g)wen "fair" (literally "visible," from nasalized form of PIE root *weid- "to see"). Daughter of Llyr, she was a legendary heroine of Wales.

Phanerozoic (adj.)

"of or pertaining to the whole of geological time since the beginning of the Cambrian," so called from the abundant evidence of life preserved in the rocks, 1930; see phanero- "visible, manifest" + zoic "pertaining to life."

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