An explanation of the name

visual |ˈvi zh oōəl| adjective of or relating to seeing or sight : visual perception. noun (usu. visuals) a picture, piece of film, or display used to illustrate or accompany something. DERIVATIVES visuality |ˌvi zh oōˈalitē| noun visually adverb ORIGIN late Middle English (originally describing a beam imagined to proceed from the eye and make vision possible): from late Latin visualis, from Latin visus ‘sight,’ from videre ‘to see.’ The current noun sense dates from the 1950s.


alchemy |ˈalkəmē| noun the medieval forerunner of chemistry, based on the supposed transformation of matter. It was concerned particularly with attempts to convert base metals into gold or to find a universal elixir. • figurative a process by which paradoxical results are achieved or incompatible elements combined with no obvious rational explanation : his conducting managed by some alchemy to give a sense of fire and ice. DERIVATIVES alchemic |alˈkemik| adjective alchemical |alˈkemikəl| adjective alchemist |-mist| noun alchemize |-ˌmīz| verb ORIGIN late Middle English : via Old French and medieval Latin from Arabic alkīmiyā ', from al ‘the’ + kīmiyā ' (from Greek khēmia, khēmeia ‘art of transmuting metals’ )