1797, "the science of phenomena, as distinct from that of being;" 1840 as "a description or history of phenomena," the latter sense from German Phänomenologie, used as the title of the fourth part of the "Neues Organon" of German physicist Johann Heinrich Lambert (1728-1777), coined from Greek phainomenon (see phenomenon) + -logia (see -logy). Psychological sense, especially in Gestalt theory, is from 1930. Related: Phenomenological; phenomenologically.
