funicity

English

Etymology

Coined by Viktor Weisskopf from the name of Ireneo Funes, a character who lost his ability to forget, in Jorge Luis Borges' short story Funes the Memorious (Funes el memorioso, 1942). See -ic, -ity.

Noun

funicity (uncountable)

1. (physics) An inbuilt quality of materials that permanently “remember” their original time and place of creation.
   • 1995, David Hawkins, “The Grand Laws of Scale”, in Thinking Physics for Teaching:

     For some quark, perhaps, the measure of its funicity is zero.

2. The reflection of an object's own history in its current form.
   • 1985, D Preziosi, That obscure object of desire: The art of art history:

     In this grey and lugubrious "history," form is all, and any work of art incorporates traces of its (own) funicity.

   • 2011, Takeshi Ogura, Dynamic Aspects Of Natural Products Chemistry, →ISBN, page 30:

     Our ability to read historical change and transformation in the funicity of things - the very bedrock of our socialization - is a socio-semiotic skill we begin to acquire in infancy, and is refined throughout our lives.