homunculus
Americannoun
plural
homunculi-
an artificially made dwarf, supposedly produced in a flask by an alchemist.
-
a fully formed, miniature human body believed, according to some medical theories of the 16th and 17th centuries, to be contained in the spermatozoon.
-
a diminutive human being.
-
the human fetus.
noun
-
a miniature man; midget
-
(in early biological theory) a fully-formed miniature human being existing in a spermatozoon or egg
Other Word Forms
- homuncular adjective
Etymology
Origin of homunculus
1650–60; < Latin, equivalent to homun- (variant of homin-, stem of homō man; Homo ) + -culus -cule 1
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
A seemingly absurd pattern popped out in the imaging that showed three interconnected and previously undocumented areas right in the homunculus section of the motor cortex.
From Scientific American • Apr. 21, 2023
Motor homunculus regions were thought to only be linked to each other across the brain’s hemispheres, the left hand with the right hand, and the left foot with the right foot.
From Scientific American • Apr. 21, 2023
Overall, our findings mean that the homunculus wears no clothes.
From Scientific American • Apr. 21, 2023
I filed the broken homunculus discovery in the “does not compute” folder of my brain and tried to work on other projects.
From Scientific American • Apr. 21, 2023
But this homunculus is just another picture on the screen in their heads.
From "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" by Mark Haddon
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
