reflex
Etymology
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Etymology
From
reflex (plural reflexes)
- An automatic response to a simple stimulus which does not require mental processing.
- 1970, Stanisław Lem, trans. Joanna Kilmartin and Steve Cox, Solaris (novel):
- For a while, I shall have to make a conscious effort to smile, nod, stand and perform the thousands of little gestures which constitute life on Earth, and then those gestures will become reflexes again.
- 1970, Stanisław Lem, trans. Joanna Kilmartin and Steve Cox, Solaris (novel):
- (linguistics) The descendant of an earlier language element, such as a word or phoneme, in a daughter language.
- Synonyms: derivative#Noun
- Antonyms: etymon
- Coordinate term: cognate
- (linguistics, rare) The ancestor word corresponding to a descendant.
- The descendant of anything from an earlier time, such as a cultural myth.
- 1898, Christian Brinton, The Century:
- The superstition of the loup-garou, or werewolf, belongs to the folklore of most modern nations, and has its reflex in the story of "Little Red Riding-hood" and others.
- (mostly, photography) Reflection or an image produced by reflection. The light reflected from an illuminated surface to one in shade.
- A reflex camera uses a mirror to reflect the image onto a ground-glass viewfinder.
- c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act III, scene v]:
- Yon gray is not the morning’s eye,
’Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow.
- 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC ↗, (please specify |part=Prologue or Rpilogue, or |canto=I to CXXIX):
- On the depths of death there swims
The reflex of a human face.
- French: continuateur
- German: Kontinuante, Fortsetzer
- Italian: riflesso, continuatore
- Spanish: reflejo, continuador
reflex
- Bent, turned back or reflected.
- a. 1677 (date written), Matthew Hale, The Primitive Origination of Mankind, Considered and Examined According to the Light of Nature, London: […] William Godbid, for William Shrowsbery, […], published 1677, →OCLC ↗:
- the reflex act of the soul, or the turning of the intellectual eye inward upon its own actions
- Produced automatically by a stimulus.
- (geometry, of an angle) Having greater than 180 degrees but less than 360 degrees.
- 1895, David Eugen Smith, Wooster Woodruff Bernan, New Plane and Solid Geometry, page 7:
- An angle less than a right angle is said to be acute; one greater than a right angle but less than a straight angle is said to be obtuse; one greater than a straight angle but less than a perigon is said to be reflex or convex.
- 1958, Howard Fehr, “On Teaching Dihedral Angle and Steradian” in The Mathematics Teacher, v 51, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, page 275:
- If the reflex region is the interior of the angle, the dihedral angle is reflex.
- 2001, Esther M. Arkin et al., “On the Reflexivity of Point Sets”, in Algorithms and data structures: 7th International Workshop, WADS 2001: Proceedings, Springer, page 195:
- We say that an angle is convex if it is not reflex.
- 2004, Ana Paula Tomás and António Leslie Bajuelos, “Quadratic-Time Linear-Space Algorithms Generating Orthogonal Polygons with a Given Number of Vertices”, in Computational Science and Its Applications – ICCSA 2004 Proceedings, part 3, Springer, page 117:
- P denotes a polygon and r the number of reflex vertices.
- (painting) Illuminated by light reflected from another part of the same picture.
- (of an angle) re-entrant
reflex (reflexes, present participle reflexing; simple past and past participle reflexed)
- (transitive) To bend back or turn back over itself.
- (transitive, obsolete) To reflect (light, sight, etc.).
- (transitive, obsolete) To reflect or mirror (an object), to show the image of.
- (transitive, obsolete) To cast (beams of light) on something.
- c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC ↗; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act III, scene i ↗:
- The ſpring is hindered by your ſmoothering hoſt,
For neither rain can fall vpon the earth,
Nor Sun reflexe his vertuous beames thereon.
The ground is mantled with ſuch multitudes.
- To respond to a stimulus.
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