Noun

(phenomena)

An observable fact or occurrence or a kind of observable fact or occurrence.

* 1900 , , The Making of Religion , ch. 1:

The Indians, making a hasty inference from a trivial phenomenon , arrived unawares at a probably correct conclusion.

* 2007 , " Ask the Experts: Hurricanes," USA Today , 7 Nov. (retrieved 16 Jan. 2009):

Hurricanes are a meteorological phenomenon .

Appearance; a perceptible aspect of something that is mutable.

* 1662 , Thomas Salusbury (translator), Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief Systems of the World , First Day:

I verily believe that in the Moon there are no rains, for if Clouds should gather in any part thereof, as they do about the Earth, they would thereupon hide from our sight some of those things, which we with the Telescope behold in the Moon, and in a word, would some way or other change its Phœnomenon .

A fact or event considered very unusual, curious, or astonishing by those who witness it.

* 1816 , , The Antiquary—Volume I , ch. 18:

The phenomenon of a huge blazing fire, upon the opposite bank of the glen, again presented itself to the eye of the watchman. . . . He resolved to examine more nearly the object of his wonder.

A wonderful or very remarkable person or thing.

* 1839 , , Nicholas Nickleby , ch. 23:

"This, sir," said Mr Vincent Crummles, bringing the maiden forward, "this is the infant phenomenon —Miss Ninetta Crummles."

* 1888 , , "The Phantom Rickshaw":

But, all the same, you're a phenomenon', and as queer a ' phenomenon as you are a blackguard.

An experienced object whose constitution reflects the order and conceptual structure imposed upon it by the human mind (especially by the powers of perception and understanding).

* 1900 , , "Comparison of Some Views of Spencer and Kant," Mind , vol. 9, no. 34, p. 234:

Every "phenomenon " must be, at any rate, partly subjective or dependent on the subject.

* 1912 , , "Is There a Cognitive Relation?" The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods , vol. 9, no. 9, p. 232:

The Kantian phenomenon is the real as we are compelled to think it.

Noun

(en noun)

Subject; theme; a category or general area of interest.

*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-03, volume=408, issue=8847, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= The machine of a new soul , passage=The yawning gap in neuroscientists’ understanding of their topic is in the intermediate scale of the brain’s anatomy. Science has a passable knowledge of how individual nerve cells, known as neurons, work. It also knows which visible lobes and ganglia of the brain do what. But how the neurons are organised in these lobes and ganglia remains obscure. Yet this is the level of organisation that does the actual thinking—and is, presumably, the seat of consciousness.}}

(Internet) Discussion thread.

(obsolete) An argument or reason.

* Bishop Wilkins

contumacious persons, who are not to be fixed by any principles, whom no topics can work upon

(obsolete, medicine) An external local application or remedy, such as a plaster, a blister, etc.

(Wiseman)