ilinx
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English
12
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
2
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A form of play that creates a temporary disruption of perception, for example by inducing vertigo, dizziness, disorientation, or frenzy.
Uncountable
noun
The sensation or altered state of consciousness that is so created, called by sociologist Roger Caillois, the “strange excitement” of wanton destruction.
Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "As illustrations he provides sports for agon, lotteries for alea, hero-worship for mimicry, and tightrope walking for ilinx."
- "First that the type of game he plays is Ilinx— the pursuit of vertigo— on a highly ordered or skilled level."
- "In literature, ilinx and its free play are represented by what Bakhtin calls the carnivalesque: chaotic structures, creative anarchy, parody, absurdity, heteroglossia, word invention, subversion of conventional meanings (a la Humpty Dumpty), figural displacements, puns, disruption of syntax, melange des genres, misquotation, masquerade, the transgression of ontological boundaries (pictures coming to life, characters interacting with their author), the treatment of identity as a plural, changeable image—in short, the destabilization of all structures, including those created by the text itself."
- "The tempest he conjures up can also be seen as a form of ilinx, in which those on the ship are tossed and tumbled about by his magic, a dark form of play in which Prospero alone knows that they are safe."
- "Many of the dances practiced by adults, the polka as well as more contemporary ones, induce a mild form of ilinx."
- "Similarly, the search for vertigo (ilinx) through intoxication and wild dancing creates a fantasy world which leads into a vision of the sacred."
Etymology
Via French from Ancient Greek ἶλιγξ (îlinx, “whirlpool; dizziness”), coined by French sociologist Roger Caillois in 1958.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: ἶλιγξ