saccade

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The Word of the Day for August 15 is:

saccade   \sak-KAHD\   noun 
     : a small rapid jerky movement of the eye especially as it jumps from 
fixation on one point to another (as in reading)

Example sentence:
     In reading, the eyes scan the text in a series of saccades and form what 
can be thought of as still photographs processed by the brain.

Did you know?
     "Saccade" is a French word meaning "twitch" or "jerk." It galloped into 
English in the early 18th century as a term used in horseback riding for a 
quick check using the reins. (Today, this meaning is too specialized for entry 
in _Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary_, but it is stabled in _Webster's 
Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged_.) In 1879, French 
ophthalmologist Emile Javal observed that a reader's eyes make a series of 
short jumps, which he referred to in French as saccades. It wasn't until 1938, 
however, when experimental psychologist Robert Woodworth wrote about the 
pioneering Javal and his saccades, that the ocular use of the word was seen in 
an English publication.





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