phi
/faɪ/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.55 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
3
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Φ, the 21st letter of the Euclidean and modern Greek alphabet, usually romanized as "ph".
noun
The golden ratio.
name
Example Sentences
- "[…] tolerance (Frenkel-Brunswik 1949) for it showed that those persons with the strongest defences against internal conflict, i.e. obsessionals and conversion hysterics, were those least able to perceive the reality-conflicting phenomenon of phi."
- "The illusion of movement in a highway construction sign is an instance of the phi phenomenon, which is also at work in motion pictures and television."
- "Is it the phi phenomenon or the persistence of vision? Originally, the illusion of motion that movies excel at was thought to be the effect of the persistence of vision."
Etymology
From Late Latin phi, from Ancient Greek φεῖ (pheî).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: phi, φεῖ