Umberto Eco (1932-2016) Tribute List

Italian author and professor of semiotics Umberto Eco died on February 19, 2016 at the age of 84. Eco studied symbols for a living, not just what things mean but how things come to mean what they do, and his day job as a professor of signs lead to his writing fiction that twisted and got knotted up in satisfying ways. Eco understood that all stories are on some level about storytelling itself, and many of Eco's tales operated on both of these levels at once. Here are 15 vocabulary words from quotes from the complicated, fascinating mind of Umberto Eco.
15 words 347 learners

Learn words with Flashcards and other activities

Definition First
Print Flashcards

Other learning activities

Answer a few questions about each word. Use this to prep for your next quiz! Compete with other teams in real time to see who answers the most questions correctly! Test your spelling acumen. Read the definition, listen to the word and try spelling it!

Teaching tools

Create and assign quizzes to your students to test their vocabulary. Assign learning activities including Practice, Vocabulary Jams and Spelling Bees to your students, and monitor their progress in real-time.

Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. enigma
    something that baffles understanding and cannot be explained
    I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.
    - Foucault's Pendulum
  2. abyss
    a bottomless gulf or pit
    What is love? There is nothing in the world, neither man nor Devil nor any thing, that I hold as suspect as love, for it penetrates the soul more than any other thing. Nothing exists that so fills and binds the heart as love does. Therefore, unless you have those weapons that subdue it, the soul plunges through love into an immense abyss.
    - The Name of the Rose
  3. emanate
    give out, as breath or an odor
    Now I realized that not infrequently books speak of books: it is as if they spoke among themselves. In the light of this...the library seemed all the more disturbing to me. It was then the place of a ... centuries-old murmuring, an imperceptible dialogue between one parchment and another, a living thing, a receptacle of powers not to be ruled by a human mind, a treasure of secrets emanated by many minds, surviving the death of those who had produced them...
    - The Name of the Rose
    -
  4. cretin
    a person of subnormal intelligence
    Each of us is sometimes a cretin, a fool, a moron, or a lunatic. A normal person is just a reasonable mix of these components, these four ideal types.
    - Foucault's Pendulum
  5. immensity
    unusual largeness in size or extent or number
    To read fiction means to play a game by which we give sense to the immensity of things that happened, are happening, or will happen in the actual world. By reading narrative, we escape the anxiety that attacks us when we try to say something true about the world. This is the consoling function of narrative — the reason people tell stories, and have told stories from the beginning of time.
    - Six Walks in the Fictional Woods
  6. consoling
    affording comfort or solace
    To read fiction means to play a game by which we give sense to the immensity of things that happened, are happening, or will happen in the actual world. By reading narrative, we escape the anxiety that attacks us when we try to say something true about the world. This is the consoling function of narrative — the reason people tell stories, and have told stories from the beginning of time.
    - Six Walks in the Fictional Woods
  7. oblivion
    the state of being disregarded or forgotten
    A book is a fragile creature, it suffers the wear of time, it fears rodents, the elements and clumsy hands. so the librarian protects the books not only against mankind but also against nature and devotes his life to this war with the forces of oblivion.
    -The Name of the Rose
  8. monotonous
    sounded or spoken in a tone unvarying in pitch
    If you want to become a man of letters and perhaps write some Histories one day, you must also lie and invent tales, otherwise your History would become monotonous. But you must act with restraint. The world condemns liars who do nothing but lie, even about the most trivial things, and it rewards poets, who lie only about the greatest things.
    - Baudolino
  9. semiotics
    a philosophical theory of the functions of signs and symbols
    Semiotics is in principle the discipline studying everything which can be used in order to lie. If something cannot be used to tell a lie, conversely it cannot be used to tell the truth: it cannot in fact be used "to tell" at all.
    - A Theory of Semiotics
  10. allude
    make an indirect reference to
    Never affirm, always allude: allusions are made to test the spirit and probe the heart.
    - The Island of the Day Before
  11. intuit
    know or grasp by instinct or feeling alone
    Here he was holding the clear proof of the existence of other skies, but at the same time without having to ascend beyond the celestial spheres, for he intuited many worlds in a piece of coral.
    - The Island of the Day Before
  12. exhibitionist
    someone who deliberately behaves in such a way as to attract attention
    I think every professor and writer is in some way an exhibitionist because his or her normal activity is a theatrical one. When you give a lesson the situation is the same as writing a book. You have to capture the attention, the complicity of your audience.
    - Interview, 2005
  13. complicity
    guilt as a confederate in a crime or offense
    I think every professor and writer is in some way an exhibitionist because his or her normal activity is a theatrical one. When you give a lesson the situation is the same as writing a book. You have to capture the attention, the complicity of your audience.
    Interview, 2005
  14. grandiose
    impressive because of unnecessary largeness or magnificence
    I seem to know all the cliches, but not how to put them together in a believable way. Or else these stories are terrible and grandiose precisely because all the cliches intertwine in an unrealistic way and you can't disentangle them. But when you actually live a cliche, it feels brand new, and you are unashamed.
    - The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana
  15. labyrinth
    complex system of paths in which it is easy to get lost
    Show not what has been done, but what can be. How beautiful the world would be if there were a procedure for moving through labyrinths.
    - The Name of the Rose
Created on Fri Feb 19 20:38:19 EST 2016 (updated Fri Feb 19 21:39:59 EST 2016)

Sign up now (it’s free!)

Whether you’re a teacher or a learner, Vocabulary.com can put you or your class on the path to systematic vocabulary improvement.