View

Part of speech: noun, verb

Pronunciation: /vjuː/

Definitions

1. A perspective or opinion on something, or the act of looking at or observing something
2. A way of perceiving or considering a situation combined with the physical act of looking at something directly
3. An individual's interpretation or judgment regarding a matter alongside the action of watching or observing it

Etymology: The English noun "view" comes from Middle English "vewe", borrowed from Anglo-Norman, where it was the feminine past participle of the Old French verb "veoir", meaning "to see". In other words, "view" is literally "the seen", a thing that has been seen, and that original sense of a sight or prospect is still present in its everyday meanings of a landscape glimpsed from a window. The word's sense then broadened from the act of seeing into the opinion one forms about what has been seen. To have a "view" on a matter is to have judged it after looking at it, so the physical act of observation gradually took on a mental one. The same root gave Italian "vedere", Spanish and Portuguese "ver", all meaning "to see". English also has two close relatives from the same source: "veduta", a term for a detailed painted or drawn scene, and "vista", a distant prospect. All three descend from that one past participle, but they entered English by different routes and took on slightly different senses.

Synonyms: sight, perspective, vista, outlook, scene

Antonyms: blindness, ignorance