Word of the Day

: January 23, 2018

synchronicity

noun sing-kruh-NISS-uh-tee

What It Means

1 : the quality or fact of being synchronous

2 : the coincidental occurrence of events and especially psychic events (as similar thoughts in widely separated persons or a mental image of an unexpected event before it happens) that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality — used especially in the psychology of C. G. Jung

synchronicity in Context

"Part of the beauty of this set lay in the way Paterson, Sample and Hall functioned as a single rhythmic organism, their long years of partnership evident in the imperturbable synchronicity of their work." — Howard Reich, The Chicago Tribune, 4 Dec. 2017

"Nolan always gets wonderful work from his casts and crews, but I'm not sure if I've ever seen this level of flawless synchronicity from start to finish in his films before Dunkirk." — Mark Hughes, Forbes, 21 July 2017

Did You Know?

"It happens to everyone sooner or later: A certain number pops up wherever you go; an old friend you haven't seen in 20 years since high school appears the same day you're looking at her picture in a yearbook; you're singing a song and turn on the radio—and the same song is playing." Such coincidences, here described by Thomas Ropp in The Arizona Republic, March 29,1999, are examples of synchronicity. The concept is linked to the psychology of Carl Jung. Jung didn't coin the word (the "simultaneousness" sense of synchronicity was already in use), but he gave it special importance in his writings. Jung believed that such "meaningful coincidences" play an important role in our lives. Today, some people even look to synchronicities for spiritual guidance.