object

noun

Object — a thing solid enough to cast its own shadow

Definition

A tangible and visible entity; an entity that can cast a shadow; "it was full of rackets, balls and other objects"

In depth

An object is a thing rendered concrete and visible, something with edges, weight, and a place in the physical world that can be seen, touched, and arranged. The word implies a kind of completeness: an object is finished, bounded, available to the senses in a way that more abstract entities are not.

Origin

The word descends from Latin obiectum, 'thrown before' or 'placed in front of,' originally describing something cast in the path of the mind or the eye for consideration. That etymology quietly survives in the word's modern philosophical use, where an object is precisely what is set before a perceiving subject — the world arranged, as it were, for inspection.

Usage examples

"The museum case held a single object, lit so carefully it seemed to glow from within."

"She could not say why the object frightened her, only that its stillness felt deliberate."

"To the child, every object in the house was alive with a private, unspoken history."

How to use it

Object suits description that wants precision and tangibility — still lifes in prose, scenes built around a single charged item, inventories of a room. It also carries a grammatical and philosophical double life as the recipient of an action, which writers sometimes play on when a person is reduced, troublingly, to mere object status.