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pareidolia

noun/ˌpærɪˈdəʊliə/

B2CEFR level
65/100Rarity: rare
TechnicalRegister

The tendency to perceive meaningful images, especially faces, in random or ambiguous patterns.

Her visual pareidolia turned the folds of the curtain into staring faces at dusk.

Topic: Neurology in Medical English

Rarity runs from 0 (a word everyone knows) to 100 (almost never seen outside specialist or literary writing). Level is the word's real difficulty on the CEFR scale, from A1 to C2.

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More medicine words: Neurology