KALEIDOSCOPE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does kaleidoscope mean? 

• KALEIDOSCOPE (noun)
  The noun KALEIDOSCOPE has 2 senses:

1. a complex pattern of constantly changing colors and shapes

2. an optical toy in a tube; it produces symmetrical patterns as bits of colored glass are reflected by mirrors

  Familiarity information: KALEIDOSCOPE used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• KALEIDOSCOPE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A complex pattern of constantly changing colors and shapes

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Hypernyms ("kaleidoscope" is a kind of...):

form; pattern; shape (a perceptual structure)

Derivation:

kaleidoscopic; kaleidoscopical (continually shifting or rapidly changing)

Sense 2

Meaning:

An optical toy in a tube; it produces symmetrical patterns as bits of colored glass are reflected by mirrors

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("kaleidoscope" is a kind of...):

plaything; toy (an artifact designed to be played with)

 Context examples 

But he swiftly dismissed the kaleidoscope of memory, oppressed by the urgent need of the present.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

For three hours we strolled about together, watching the ever-changing kaleidoscope of life as it ebbs and flows through Fleet Street and the Strand.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Provided with a case of pencils, and some sheets of paper, I used to take a seat apart from them, near the window, and busy myself in sketching fancy vignettes, representing any scene that happened momentarily to shape itself in the ever-shifting kaleidoscope of imagination: a glimpse of sea between two rocks; the rising moon, and a ship crossing its disk; a group of reeds and water-flags, and a naiad's head, crowned with lotus- flowers, rising out of them; an elf sitting in a hedge-sparrow's nest, under a wreath of hawthorn-bloom.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)