saccade
verbEtymology Borrowed from French saccade.
1
Of the eye To make a rapid jerking movement to focus elsewhere.
- Related terms
- eyetracking, scanpath
saccade
noun/səˈkɑːd/
Etymology Borrowed from French saccade.
1
Engineering, Medicine, Natural sciences, Ophthalmology, Physical sciences, Science, Sciences, Technology Of reading A rapid movement of the eye (either voluntary or involuntary) from one focus to another. (Often described as a jerky movement, but this word denotes all such quick eye movements, which happen continually, not just exaggerated or weird ones, and not nystagmus.)
- He added the bill with a single saccade of his pulsing eyes.1993, Will Self, My Idea of Fun:
- Then 130 milliseconds or thousandths of a second later, each made a "saccade" - an extremely fast eye movement - to roughly where the ball was likely to bounce.2000 November 21, Tim Radford, The Guardian:
1 more example
- He paused, looking at me intently, his black-flecked eyes scanning my face in quick saccades.2019, Ian McEwan, Machines Like Me, Jonathan Cape, page 23:
2
The act of checking a horse quickly with a single strong pull of the reins.
3
Entertainment, Lifestyle, Music The sounding of two violin strings together by using a sudden strong pressure of the bow.
4
Rare Any sudden jerking movement.
- Derived terms
- antisaccade, desaccade, intersaccade, macrosaccade, microsaccade, presaccade, prosaccade, saccadic, saccadically, saccadization, saccadometer, saccadometric, saccadometry