June 09, 2011
- mobile (noun)
- \MOH-beel\
- What does it mean?
- : an artistic structure that is moved easily or that has parts easily moved (as by a current of air)
- How do you use it?
- The baby laughs and smiles as the stuffed animals hanging on his mobile go round and round.
- Are you a word wiz?
The noun "mobile" came into English during the time that the artist considered the inventor of the art form was creating his moving sculptures. Which artist do you think is responsible for creating the art form known as a mobile?
Alexander Calder was an American artist who lived during the 20th century. He moved to France in the 1920s and met many other artists. In the 1930s he began making sculptures with motorized moving parts. Because the sculptures had motion, the famous French artist Marcel Duchamp gave Calder's sculptures the name "mobile." "Mobile" comes from the adjective "mobile" (pronounced \MOH-bul or MOH-byle\), which means "capable of being moved, movable." Both the adjective and noun trace to the Latin verb "movere," meaning "to move."
