Skeuomorph
Etymology
From Greek "skeuos," a vessel or tool, plus "morphe," shape — a form carried over from an older making. The archaeologist Henry Colley March coined it in 1889 for ornaments that echo the marks of earlier materials. The digital age revived it for interfaces dressed up as physical objects.
noun · /SKYOO-uh-morf/
A design element that imitates the form of an older object or material long after the function that shaped it is gone.
What it names
The decorative fossils in our built world — the shutter-click sound on a silent phone camera, stitched-leather app backgrounds, fake wood grain — kept for familiarity, not necessity.
Example
The e-reader’s page-turn animation is a skeuomorph — a paper gesture pantomimed on glass.
Related idea
Distinct from an affordance: a skeuomorph borrows an old look for familiarity, whereas an affordance signals a genuinely available action — though a skeuomorph often survives because it doubles as one.
See also