musca volitans
- noun
- /ˈmʌskə voʊˈlɪtænz/
- Specialized
:
musca volitans
- She was diagnosed with musca volitans when she complained of seeing spots in her vision.
Examples
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I often see musca volitans when I look at a bright sky.
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The ophthalmologist explained that musca volitans are usually harmless but can be distracting.
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Many people notice musca volitans as they age, especially when looking at a bright background.
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Are those muscae volitantes in your vision bothering you?
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Many people notice musca volitans as they age, especially when looking at a bright background.
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The ophthalmologist explained that musca volitans are usually harmless but can be distracting.
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I often see musca volitans when I look at a bright sky.
Synonyms
1
8.1
A small dark spot that drifts across your field of vision
Dark spots or thin lines that float across your vision
Surface Forms
Morphology
Musca + volitans
The phrase is Latin (musca = fly; volitans ≈ flying/hovering) so its parts literally suggest ‘flying/hovering fly,’ which can metaphorically describe small moving floaters in the visual field. Because one constituent is not an English lemma here and the medical/metaphorical shift (spots that look like flies) is culture-specific, the meaning is only partially recoverable from the parts and requires prior exposure or knowledge of the metaphor in other languages.
Etymology
Musca volitans comes from Latin words musca and volitans, which mean 'flying fly' and create the image of a tiny insect moving across your sight. People used this picture because the small bits inside the eye look like little flies or threads that drift, so the phrase now means the moving spots people sometimes see in their vision.