Definition of microcosm
in microcosm
: in a greatly diminished size, form, or scale
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Examples of microcosm in a Sentence
The village is a microcosm of the whole country.
The game was a microcosm of the entire season.
Recent Examples of microcosm from the Web
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Of course, these stories are just microcosms for a larger issue: The gender pay gap exists across the board.
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The locally owned, 75-year-old company's decision to close its doors is a microcosm of what is taking place across the United States, as new players and changing consumer habits remake the retail food business.
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The Merchandise Mart Center can be seen as a microcosm for our entire community in Illinois.
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The white parents in Seattle are a microcosm of supposedly liberal white people all over America who want to be good allies, but can’t seem to move past semantics in that allyship.
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The patient roster is a perfect microcosm of L.A.’s privileged class: art dealers and Rodeo Drive merchants, clothing designers and Boeing middle managers, studio execs and the trophy wives who will eventually divorce them.
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Gas has divided the 13,000-strong community in Australia’s cotton-growing heartland, making it a microcosm of a national debate.
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With Gators and Aggies fighting it out at the top with only the slightest margin between them, the event -- won by a Gator for the third time in the last four years -- was a microcosm of the team race.
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Indeed, the division within Fox News is a microcosm of a larger trend.
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'microcosm.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Did You Know?
A microcosm is a "little world" - "mikros kosmos" in Greek. The Greek term was modified to "microcosmus" in Medieval Latin. When early medieval scholars referred to humans as miniature embodiments of the natural universe, they either employed the Latin word microcosmus or they used the English translation, "less world." "Man is callyd the lasse worlde, for he shewyth in hymselfe lyknesse of all the worlde," wrote John Trevisa when he translated the Latin text of Bartholomaeus Anglicus’ encyclopedia in the 14th century. But by the 15th century scholars had adopted an anglicized version of the Latin word, the word we use today - "microcosm."
Origin and Etymology of microcosm
Middle English, from Medieval Latin microcosmus, modification of Greek mikros kosmos
MICROCOSM Defined for English Language Learners
microcosm
playDefinition of microcosm for English Language Learners
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: something (such as a place or an event) that is seen as a small version of something much larger
Learn More about microcosm
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Spanish Central: Translation of microcosm Nglish: Translation of microcosm for Spanish speakers Britannica English: Translation of microcosm for Arabic speakers Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about microcosm
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