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reflex

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

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See also: Reflex

English

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Etymology

From Late Latin reflexus, past participle of reflectere (“to bend back”), equivalent to re- +‎ flex. Photography sense is from noun sense meaning “reflection”. Compare English reflect.

Pronunciation

  • (noun, adjective) IPA(key): /ˈɹiːflɛks/
  • Audio (UK):(file)
  • IPA(key): (verb) /ɹɪˈflɛks/
  • Audio (UK):(file)

Noun

reflex (plural reflexes)

More information Examples ...
  1. An automatic response to a simple stimulus which does not require mental processing.
    • 1970, Stanisław Lem, trans. Joanna Kilmartin and Steve Cox, Solaris:
      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.
    • 2012 May 5, Phil McNulty, “Chelsea 2-1 Liverpool”, in BBC Sport‎:
      He met Luis Suarez's cross at the far post, only for Chelsea keeper Petr Cech to show brilliant reflexes to deflect his header on to the bar. Carroll turned away to lead Liverpool's insistent protests that the ball had crossed the line but referee Phil Dowd and assistant referee Andrew Garratt waved play on, with even a succession of replays proving inconclusive.
  2. (linguistics) The descendant of an earlier language element, such as a word or phoneme, in a daughter language.
    Antonym: etymon
    Coordinate term: cognate
  3. (linguistics, rare) The ancestor word corresponding to a descendant.
  4. 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.
  5. (chiefly photography) A reflection or an image produced by a 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.

Derived terms

Translations

Adjective

reflex (comparative more reflex, superlative most reflex)

  1. 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
  2. Produced automatically by a stimulus.
    • 1984 February 4, Mike Riegle, “Consent and Violence”, in Gay Community News, volume 11, number 28, page 6:
      It's easier to focus on the particular relationship or object (as in 'pornography', for example) than on the sexist (racist, ageist, etc.) attitudes that generate the almost reflex violence taught in our schools, churches, legal processes, families, mass entertainment, and advertising propaganda.
  3. (geometry, of an angle) Having greater than 180 degrees but less than 360 degrees.
    • 1878, James Maurice Wilson, Elementary Geometry, MacMillan, page 10:
      A polygon is said to be convex when no one of its angles is reflex.
    • 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.
    • 1991, B. Falcidieno et al., “Configurable Representations in Feature-based Modelling”, in Eurographics '91: Proceedings, North-Holland, page 145:
      A reflex edge of a polyhedron is an edge where the inner dihedral angle subtended by two incident faces is greater than 180°.
    • 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.
  4. (painting) Illuminated by light reflected from another part of the same picture.

Synonyms

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

reflex (third-person singular simple present reflexes, present participle reflexing, simple past and past participle reflexed)

  1. (transitive) To bend back or turn back over itself.
  2. (transitive, obsolete) To reflect (light, sight, etc.).
  3. (transitive, obsolete) To reflect or mirror (an object), to show the image of.
  4. (transitive, obsolete) To cast (beams of light) on something.
    • c. 1587–1588 (date written), [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.
  5. To respond to a stimulus.

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