microcosm

UK/ˈmaɪ.kɹə(ʊ)ˌkɒz.əm/US/ˈmaɪ.kɹəˌkɑz.əm/

nounC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #13,518 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: microcosms

A microcosm is a small thing that shows the pattern of something far larger. A microcosm of society, in microcosm, the town is a microcosm.

It nearly always takes of, and journalists reach for it whenever one place seems to illustrate a whole country. Its opposite, macrocosm, is far rarer, though the pair was the original idea.

Definitions of microcosm

1nounmicrocosmA small thing that shows the pattern of something far larger.C1
“The small market was a microcosm of the city, with people from every corner of the world.”

microcosm is a model.

Where it comes from

Greek mikros kosmos means little world, from mikros, small, plus kosmos, world or order.

French
microcosme
English, today
microcosm

Built from

κόσμος · Ancient Greek — universe, order

From French microcosme, from Latin microcosmus, from Ancient Greek μικρός (“small”) + κόσμος (“universe, order”); micro + cosm.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

microcosm in the wild

However, the terms microcosm and macrocosm refer more specifically to the analogy as it was developed in ancient Greek philosophy and its medieval and early modern descendants.
Microcosm–macrocosm analogy
In contemporary usage, the terms microcosm and macrocosm are also employed to refer to any smaller system that is representative of a larger one, and vice versa.
Microcosm–macrocosm analogy
Considering the broad cultural sequencing, the Chicama Valley can be considered as an archaeological microcosm.
El Brujo
A Winogradsky column is an example of a microbial microcosm.
Microcosm (experimental ecosystem)

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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