Definition
The study or assessment of a person's character or personality based on their physical appearance, especially facial features; also, a person's characteristic appearance or expression. While rooted in historical pseudoscience, the term is now used more broadly to describe facial appearance or the distinctive character of something.
Example Usage
The detective claimed he could read guilt in a person's physiognomy, though modern psychology rejects such judgments as unreliable.
Origin
From Greek physiognomia (knowledge of nature), combining physis (nature) and gnomon (interpreter or judge).
Fun Fact
Physiognomy was taken seriously by Renaissance thinkers and 19th-century phrenologists but is now recognized as pseudoscientific; it has been used to justify harmful racial and ethnic stereotyping throughout history.
Related Terms
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