Are you ready to flex your word nerd muscles? Then you’re in the right place. Join me for Wondrous Words Wednesday, a meme for the vocabulary obsessed. Visit Kathy at Bermuda Onion to find more interesting words.
My word comes from the recently released kid lit novel The Inquisitors Mark, by Dianne K. Salerni. It’s the second book in The Eighth Day series, an adventure that brings Arthurian legends to life in our contemporary world. If you or your kids like magic and adventure, a la Rick Riordan or Harry Potter, you should check out this series.
Do you know what eidetic means? Here’s an excerpt from the book:
“The Taliesin family has an eidetic memory. That’s their talent – memorizing everything they’ve ever read or heard.”
eidetic \ī-‘det-ik\ adj from the Greek eidetikos, idein “to see”
- Marked by extraordinarily accurate and vivid recall, especially of visual images
An eidetic memory would have been super helpful in grad school, especially for anatomy class!
Word Nerd Workout
Think of a character who has an eidetic memory, like the kid lit favorite Cam Jansen or Shawn Spencer of the “Psych” TV show.
Stay tuned for a review of Dianne’s book. To learn more about it, visit her site at DianneSalerni.com
Thanks for getting nerdy with me!
Julia
Cam Jansen was my daughter’s favorite! Encyclopedia Brown was my fave as a kid; his memory wasn’t quite as eidetic as Cam’s, but much more than my own!
My oldest used to love Cam Jansen. We even made her a photo book one year using the eidetic memory as part of the theme.
I’d never heard this word until a couple of months ago. I was watching a rerun of The Big Bang Theory and the main character said he had an eidetic memory. It took me forever to figure out the spelling so I could look it up. It’s something we used to call an photographic memory. I learned “photo” isn’t true of how an eidetic brain works. It is very interesting. I only wish I had half an eidetic memory.
I’m not sure if she has an eidetic memory but Hermione’s memory has to be close!
Good one (and I loved the Cam Jansen books)!
That is what is often referred to as “photographic” memory, where one can recall details (often visual) after only brief exposure. Sheldon Cooper was definitely my first thought and my daughter is my second. While she’s not a fictional character, she is most certainly a character. 😀 It’s kind of bizarre and amazing.
Wow! How lucky is she?! My daughter is quite the character too, although an eidetic memory is not one of her talents. I’m sure she would love to have one. Thanks for “playing”.
Ha! I saw the title of your post on my Feedly page: What Does Eidetic Mean? and thought, “Oooh, I know!” Then I realized you were getting it from my book. 😀 Yay!
Sheldon Cooper on The Big Bang Theory has an eidetic memory, btw.
Thanks for teaching me a new word, Dianne. 😉