atmosphere

atmosphere 1 *air, ether, ozone

2 Atmosphere, feeling, feel, aura denote an intangible and usually unanalyzable quality or aggregate of qualities which gives something an individual and distinctly recognizable character.

Atmosphere is used chiefly in reference to places, to groups of persons, or to periods of time that have a definite identity. It frequently denotes a character that accrues to something or that pervades it as a whole and determines the impression it produces on those who come within the range of its influence; thus, a place that has no atmosphere is by implication a place that leaves no clear impression of its difference from other places of the same type or kind; a poet who re-creates the atmosphere of the Middle Ages is one who by implication gives a true and vivid impression of the life of that time. Atmosphere may also denote an environment (regarded as a sum total of physical, social, intellectual, and spiritual conditions) that not only produces a distinct impression but exerts a definite influence (as on the state of mind, habits of work, or views) of those who are encompassed by it

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genius can only breathe freely in an atmosphere of freedom— J. S. Mill

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any judge who has sat with juries knows that . . . they are extremely likely to be impregnated by the environing atmosphere— Justice Holmes

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Feeling (see also FEELING, SENSATION) may refer either to the character one ascribes to something when one has a clear and unified impression of its distinctive qualities or atmosphere, or to the aesthetic effect of a work of art which not only represents a thing but re-creates its atmosphere or conveys the impression the artist seeks to produce

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a collection of scenic wallpapers that . . . have a slight Japanese feeling— New Yorker

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they bring the notion of the thing described to the mind, they do not bring the feeling of it to the imagination— Arnold

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Feel may be used interchangeably with feeling and also with atmosphere, especially when the quality of a thing is known through frequent experience or intimate knowledge

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the factory had a homely feel— D. H. Lawrence

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the sensitive reader may discover in them, also, something of the quality and feel of Shakespeare’s own poetry— Day Lewis

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Aura is used chiefly in reference to persons who seem to be enveloped by an ethereal spirit which is an emanation of their inner life or of their secret thoughts; it is also used of things that are invested with a mysterious quality or character

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in their company, he was always conscious of an aura of disapproval

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there was about her the aura, the glow, the roseate exhalation that surrounds the woman in love— Ferber

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throughout the Middle Ages the Taunus and the Harz had about them an aura of the uncanny as the last haunt of the primeval gods— Buchan

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Analogous words: *quality, character, property: peculiarity, individuality, characteristic (see corresponding adjectives at CHARACTERISTIC): *impression, impress