jamais vu
1
9.9
- noun
- /ʒæˈmɛ veɪ/
- Specialized
- Some people experience jamais vu as a symptom during epileptic episodes.
Examples
-
He experienced jamais vu when he visited his childhood home.
-
After years at the job, he was struck by jamais vu as his office suddenly seemed strange and foreign.
-
The phenomenon of jamais vu can be unsettling, making the familiar world feel oddly unknown.
-
Many people suffer from jamais vu during stressful situations.
-
When he walked into his childhood home, he experienced jamais vu as everything seemed unfamiliar.
-
She felt a sense of jamais vu when meeting her old classmates, as if she had never known them.
-
For a moment, he was struck by jamais vu while reading a familiar book, as if the words had changed.
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
jamais + vu
If a learner knows the French constituents 'jamais' (never) and 'vu' (seen), the literal reading 'never seen' points toward unfamiliarity, so part of the MWE's sense is recoverable from its parts. However, 'jamais vu' is a French loan with a specific clinical/psychological nuance (feeling that the familiar is unfamiliar) and many learners will not know the French words, so the meaning is not fully predictable or transparent in general.
Etymology
The term jamais vu comes from the French words jamais ('never') and vu ('seen'). Doctors who study the mind used it to name the strange moment when something familiar suddenly feels new or unknown, so the name links the literal idea to the modern meaning 'a feeling of unfamiliarity'.