Definitions

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Anthropology) that temporary state during a rite of passage when the participant lacks social status or rank, is required to follow specified forms of conduct, and is expected to show obedience and humility.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun the state of being liminal

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Note that in HIGHLANDER Macleod's transition to liminality is made explicit in his exile from his clan.

    Notes on Strange Fiction: Seams Hal Duncan 2008

  • This liminality is developed throughout this series.

    Archive 2008-08-01 Hal Duncan 2008

  • This liminality is developed throughout this series.

    Notes on Strange Fiction: Seams Hal Duncan 2008

  • Note that in HIGHLANDER Macleod's transition to liminality is made explicit in his exile from his clan.

    Archive 2008-08-01 Hal Duncan 2008

  • They are viewed as more shame - and guilt-ridden and bound by "liminality" -- being in-between two worlds.

    ScienceBlogs Channel : Life Science 2008

  • There are certain times in our lives when we're much more acutely aware of being in transition or flux than in others, and so I think the idea of liminality is still important.

    Betwixt and Between Susan Palwick 2007

  • In my classroom re-enactments, I am often surprised at the effect on myself, and in Deyang I experienced the sudden insights into my own culture that Turner says are a potential of ritual (a product of "liminality").

    Susan Brownell: Why Were Chinese People So Angry About the Attempts to Seize the Torch in the International Torch Relay? 2008

  • As for now, Woods occupies the space of what we anthropologists call "liminality," namely the wilderness between one status and another.

    ajc.com - News Orin Starn 2009

  • It is here that I come every morning, this oasis for my soul providing the liminality I seek.

    Ambrosia 2010

  • It is this role as mediator that imbues woman with an essential liminality to the extent that she concurrently is the instantiation of both nature and culture, and in so being becomes the most likely sacrificial victim in Greek folk song, be it voluntary or involuntary as in 'Sacrifice at the Bridge of Arta'. 4

    Arms and the Woman: Just Warriors and Greek Feminist Identity 2008

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