saccade

See also: saccadé

English

WOTD – 16 July 2011

Etymology

From French saccade.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /səˈkɑːd/
    • (file)
  • Rhymes: -ɑːd

Noun

saccade (plural saccades)

  1. (rare) A sudden jerking movement.
  2. A rapid jerky movement of the eye (voluntary or involuntary) from one focus to another.
    • 1993, Will Self, My Idea of Fun:
      He added the bill with a single saccade of his pulsing eyes.
    • 2000 November 21, Tim Radford, The Guardian:
      Then 130 milliseconds or thousandths of a second later, each made a "saccade" - an extremely fast eye movement - to roughly where the ball was likely to bounce.
    • 2019, Ian McEwan, Machines Like Me, Jonathan Cape, page 23:
      He paused, looking at me intently, his black-flecked eyes scanning my face in quick saccades.
  3. The act of checking a horse quickly with a single strong pull of the reins.
  4. (music) The sounding of two violin strings together by using a sudden strong pressure of the bow.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

saccade (third-person singular simple present saccades, present participle saccading, simple past and past participle saccaded)

  1. (of the eye, intransitive) To make a rapid jerking movement to focus elsewhere.

See also

Anagrams

French

Etymology

From saquer or its Spanish cognate sacar.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /sa.kad/
  • (file)

Noun

saccade f (plural saccades)

  1. a jerk (jerking movement)
  2. a rapid jerky movement of the eye (voluntary or involuntary) from one focus to another
  3. the act of checking a horse quickly with a single strong pull of the reins

Derived terms

Verb

saccade

  1. inflection of saccader:
    1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
    2. second-person singular imperative

Further reading

Anagrams

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