Pronounced: pie-ACK-yuh-luhr, adj
Notes: I don’t think I’ve heard of this word
Yesterday’s word
The word liminal means
- of or relating to a sensory threshold
- barely perceptible
- relating to an intermediate state, phase, or condition
First usage
Our word came into English in the late 1800s
Background / Comments
As I noted, I should have been able to work out the meaning our of word because of the well-known word subliminal, which means below the level of being noticed. Our word liminal is the adjectival form of the noun limen, which refers to the point at which a physiological or psychological effect beings to be produced, which is called the sensory threshold. Our word has expanded to take on the second and third meanings above.
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day 