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I am looking for a word that means "micro and macro". For instance, if I was describing an economic phenomenon that can be observed on both the micro and macro levels of the economy, I could call it a __ phenomenon.

If you don't know of a "real" English term for this, I'm open to suggestions for new words!

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5 Answers 5

up vote 2 down vote accepted

No need to invent new words right yet, we have terms for many of these things!

One of the most commonly recognized scale-independent forms is the Fractal. It mains the same form whether 'big' or 'small'.

In fact, the concepts 'big' or 'small' don't even have a real connection to fractals, which gets at the essence of what you're thinking.


Generally, you are referring to scale-independent or scale-invariant phenomena.

You could use the word scaleless, but I find its awkward to many people.


Source: I have published an article about scale-invariance.

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I think what fits best in this particular case is:

"I could call it a universal phenomenon."

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Perhaps

  • broadscale
  • wide-spectrum
  • full spectrum
  • full range
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How about: "A general phenomenon" ? Is it too generic ?

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One way of answering this would be to suggest words meaning "present everywhere", such as ubiquitous:

present, appearing, or found everywhere

- and its synonyms.

A different approach would be to consider words that mean "displaying the same characteristics at all ranges of scales" - this is less commonplace, but the mathematical term fractal springs to mind:

a curve or geometrical figure, each part of which has the same statistical character as the whole.

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