Has “Liminal” Become a More Common Word?

Nancy from New Haven, Connecticut, has noticed the word liminal turning up everywhere lately and wonders if she’s imagining it. She’s not. The word’s use has risen sharply since around 2021, particularly in long-form journalism and public radio. Rooted in the Latin limen, meaning “threshold,” liminal describes a kind of “in-between state.” The related phrase liminal spaces took on a specific internet aesthetic around 2019, when images of deserted hotel corridors, empty classrooms, and unused auditoriums began circulating on TikTok and Tumblr. There’s also something about the look of the thinner, lower-case letters in the word liminal that seems reminiscent of what the word itself means. This is part of a complete episode.