Kilo Lingo

Line drawing of perspektivo
Coloured illustration of perspektivo
#2449 of 5,000 Core 5000

Translation

perspective; prospect

Word origin

From medieval Latin perspectiva ars, the art of seeing through, from perspicere: per ('through') plus specere ('to look'). It was the technical name for the geometry of drawing depth on a flat surface long before it meant an opinion.

Origin
Latin
Root
perspicere
English cognates
perspective, spectacle, inspect, specimen

Examples

.

From my perspective the matter looks completely different.

.

The prospects for the coming year are good.

.

The painter explained the rules of perspective.

No -iv- here, and that is worth stating plainly because -iv- is a real suffix in Esperanto, just not an official one. Among the neoficialaj afiksoj it is the one meaning "able to, tending to": produktiva productive, kreiva creative, instruiva instructive. Every one of those is built on a verb that exists in its own right, and that is the tell. There is no perspekti, so there is nothing for -iv- to attach to, so is not a derivation. It is a single root, -, and the -o is the only ending in it.

That distinction matters more than the individual word. The unofficial affixes are productive enough to be tempting and irregular enough to be a trap: you can usually reverse a genuine -iv- word into its verb and check. If the verb is not there, the suffix is not there either.

Three senses, all live. First the geometric one in the third example, the draughtsman's technique of making a flat surface look deep, which is where the word started around 1400. Second the figurative extension of that, a point of view: , o. Third, and this is the one English speakers under-use, the forward-looking one: in the plural means prospects, the outlook for something. That third sense is the reason the gloss on this page carries a semicolon rather than a comma. Perspective and prospect are not two English words for one idea; they are two ideas sharing an Esperanto word.

For the point-of-view sense specifically, vidpunkto at rank 1560 is the plainer and more Esperanto-ish option, built from and the way the language prefers. Use it when you can. is the right word when the depth or the distance is part of what you mean.

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Esperanto · Free printables

perspektivo: worksheet, infographic and listicle

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This word is part of lesson 49.