(pawl.ee.uh.TEN.tiv.nus)
n.
The ability to watch or listen carefully to more than one thing at a time.
Example Citation:
Though she claims to disdain the academic life, she seems to fall back on jargon such as 'polyattentiveness' and 'plebianized' when she doesn't have anything of significance to say.
— Margaret Quamme, "Syrup Ruins Mix of Sontag's Ideas," The Columbus Dispatch, November 11, 2001
Earliest Citation:
Or we may cultivate a skill John Cage calls "polyattentiveness" — the simultaneous apprehension of two or more unrelated phenomena.
—Marshall Cohen, "What is dance?," Oxford University Press, April 7, 1983
Related Words:
Category:
New words. 2013.