Wordie [wûrd • ē]
Like Flickr, but without the photos.
|
13 wordies list
Leave a comment, citation, or
private note
|
first listed by:
chibiryuu (104 words)
appears in these lists:
soph2's Words, by soph2
word set11, by palooka
Miscellany, pt. a, by she
|
see asymptote on wikipedia.
We can look at another way too: closer and closer to death (the asymptote)...but never reaching it. See hylozoism and hylopathism.
Now I'm depressed.
Taken from mathematics, this is a marvelous word to use when you want to convey something keeps getting closer and closer...but never reaches it. The simple example is this: take a number and divide it by 2. Then divide that by 2, ad infinitum. While you will get closer and closer to zero, you will never actually reach zero. This is called asymptotically approaching zero. What a metaphor for life in many ways...you get closer and closer, but never reach it.