point of view

plural points of view · alternative point-of-view

1. A position from which something is seen.

   From an economist's point of view, business is all about money.

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   From the operator's point of view, there is a large blind spot on one side of the machine.

   From another point of view, it was a place without a soul. The well-to-do had hearts of stone; the rich were brutally bumptious; the Press, the Municipality, all the public men, were ridiculously, vaingloriously self-satisfied.

   1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XXII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC

   It has been suggested that Prothean data recording is highly dependent on a certain point of view, what Carl Jung described as the collective unconscious. The 'cipher' needed to comprehend the images implanted in Shepard's mind is the cultural knowledge of a Prothean: the archetypes, biological instincts, and common experiences universal to the race.

   2008, BioWare, Mass Effect (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Protheans: Cipher Codex entry

   Synonyms: outlook, perspective, POV, standpoint, viewpoint

2. figurativelyAn attitude, opinion, or set of beliefs.

   Near-synonyms: slant, bias

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   You just think, think / About your point of view / You don't have to get involved / No one's forcing you

   1977, Ashford & Simpson, “Don't Cost You Nothing”, in Send It

   His point of view is that there is only one true religion.

   Synonyms: outlook, perspective, POV, standpoint, viewpoint, slant, bias

3. literary theoryliteratureThe perspective from which a narrative is related.

   The storyline in the film “The Usual Suspects” is presented from the point of view of an unreliable narrator.

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   Therefore, there may be no overt indication of viewpoint, either because the speaker fails to mark his or her viewpoint, or because he or she takes a neutral point of view.

   1999, Lise Menn, Akio Kamio, Makoto Hayashi, Ikuyo Fujita, Sumiko Sasanuma, Larry Boles, “The Role of Empathy in Sentence Production”, in Akio Kamio, Ken-ichi Takami, editors, Function and Structure, page 331

   Synonyms: viewpoint, perspective

   1. literary theoryliteratureThe point-of-view character in a story.

      Synonyms: viewpoint, perspective