Skeuomorph

Quick meaning: Skeuomorph is a noun meaning A design feature copied from a similar feature in another object, even when not functionally necessary.

Meaning

A design feature copied from a similar feature in another object, even when not functionally necessary.

Example Sentences

Such skeuomorphs can be used to reconstruct ephemeral artifacts that cannot be recovered archaeologically. Understood in this way, the skeuomorph functions to extend the archaeological record.

As soon as man began to make things, to fasten a handle to a stone implement, to construct a wattled roof, to weave a mat, skeuomorphs became an inseparable part of his brain, and ultimately occasioned a mental craving or expectancy.

1987, Alexander von Gernet, Peter Timmins, Pipes and Parakeets: Constructing Meaning in an Early Iroquoian Context, Ian Hodder, Archaeology As Long-Term History, page 37, One of the most striking examples of a skeuomorph is the aforementioned impaled bird motif which has the stem of a pipe thrust through the body of a duck or other bird, so that the mouthpiece protrudes from the bill.

While working two months ago in South Lowestoft, Suffolk, British archaeologist Clare Good excavated a four-sided object made of the mineral jet. It closely matches a geometrically designed gold object found far away at a burial site called Bush Barrow near Stonehenge in Wiltshire. The match is so close that experts believe the black artifact is a skeuomorph, or a copy in a different material.

Word Forms

• skeuomorphs

Synonyms for skeuomorph

Depending on context, synonyms include skiamorph.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include homomorph, duplicate, imitation, model, look-alike, symmorph.

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