Etymology: Henry Colley March, a British physician and amateur archaeologist, devised the word in 1889 by combining the Greek skeuos, which means container or implement, with morphē, a reference to shape. Meaning: In an age deeply preoccupied with ornament, March offered a handy term for a common but often awkwardly described kind of decoration. “The forms demonstrably due to structure require a name, ” he wrote. “If those taken from animals are called zoomorphs and those taken from plants phyllomorphs, it will be convenient to call those derived from structure skeuomorphs.” The lion foot at the base of a chair leg is a zoomorph, and a foliated wrought iron gate This story is from Kinfolk Issue Thirty-Three Buy Now Related Stories Arts & Culture Issue 51 WORD: CRINGE A foray into the awkward. Arts & Culture Issue 50 Word: Dupe On the next best thing. Arts & Culture Issue 49 Word: Zeitgeber A new treatise on time. Arts & Culture Issue 48 Word: Kaloprosopia A word that celebrates the masks we wear. Arts & Culture Issue 47 Word: Döstädning A Swedish solution to the mess of death. Arts & Culture Issue 46 Word: Wintering When to withdraw from the world.
