Limin

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A threshold or transitional space between one state or place and another, often referring to an intermediate phase of change or passage; a concept in anthropology describing the middle stage in rites of passage where participants are between previous and forthcoming statuses; a point of crossing or boundary that marks the shift from one condition to another
2. A boundary area that represents the middle or in-between phase of transformation or transition; a term used in cultural studies to describe the ambiguous period during rituals when normal limits to thought and behavior are relaxed; a threshold that delineates movement from one domain or phase to the next
3. An intermediate zone or phase marking the passage between two distinct stages or conditions; used to describe the transitional position in ceremonies where participants are no longer in their old state but have not yet fully entered the next; a spatial or temporal boundary indicating change or transformation

Etymology: Arnold van Gennep, a French folklorist, needed a term for the stage of a ritual when a person is neither what they were nor what they will become. He took it from the Latin "limen," meaning threshold, the sill a person stands on while crossing a doorway. The anthropologist Victor Turner later built on this idea, making the middle stage central to how scholars study ritual. The physical image of the doorsill remains in the English adjective, which keeps the sense of standing at an edge. Psychologists borrowed the same Latin noun for the minimum intensity of a stimulus that a person can detect, the point where a sensation just crosses into awareness. The threshold image thus moved from a doorway to the boundary of perception.