Meanings
- uncountablenatural sciencesAn inbuilt quality of materials that permanently “remember” their original time and place of creation.
For some quark, perhaps, the measure of its funicity is zero.
1995, David Hawkins, “The Grand Laws of Scale”, in Thinking Physics for Teaching - uncountableThe reflection of an object's own history in its current form.
In this grey and lugubrious "history," form is all, and any work of art incorporates traces of its (own) funicity.
1985, D Preziosi, That obscure object of desire: The art of art history1 more example
Our ability to read historical change and transformation in the funicity of things - the very bedrock of our socialization - is a socio-semiotic skill we begin to acquire in infancy, and is refined throughout our lives.
2011, Takeshi Ogura, Dynamic Aspects Of Natural Products Chemistry, →ISBN, page 30
Origin
Coined by Viktor Weisskopf from the name of Ireneo Funes, a character who lost his ability to forget, in Jorge Luis Borges' short story Funes the Memorious (Funes el memorioso, 1942). See -ic, -ity.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
funicity. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/funicity
“funicity.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/funicity. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “funicity,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/funicity.
Source: funicity on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.