Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Of or relating to mirrors and reflected images.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Relating to the branch of optics called catoptrics; pertaining to incident and reflected light.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Of or pertaining to catoptrics; produced by reflection.
- adjective a light in which the rays are concentrated by reflectors into a beam visible at a distance.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective of, relating to, or produced by
mirrors orreflections - noun The branch of
optics dealing withreflection .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective of or relating to catoptrics; produced by or based on mirrors
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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This 'catoptric' form of apparatus is still to some extent employed in our lighthouse-service, but for a long time past it has been more and more displaced by the great lenses devised by the illustrious Frenchman, Fresnel.
Fragments of science, V. 1-2 John Tyndall 1856
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‘I am going to apply what is called the catoptric test.
New Grub Street 2003
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The eleven guardsmen who lined the seat astern, fading like so many ghosts into its pointille upholstery, owed their near invisibility to the catoptric armor of my own Praetorians; and I soon realized they were my own Praetorians in fact, their armor, and what was more important, their traditions having been handed down from this unimaginably early day to my own.
The Urth of the New Sun Wolfe, Gene 1987
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Eisenoplasy, or esenoplastic power, is contradistinguished from fantasy, either catoptric or metoptric -- repeating simply, or by transposition -- and, again, involuntary [fantasy] as in dreams, or by an act of the will.
The Art of Letters Robert Lynd 1914
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In dilating the pupil with the extract, preliminary to an examination of a diseased eye by the catoptric test, I have repeatedly found it to allay supra-orbital pains.
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The floating lights of England are illuminated by means of lamps with metallic reflectors, on what is styled the catoptric system.
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Each of the white towers is sixty-one feet high, and contains a brilliant fixed catoptric or reflecting light.
A Yacht Voyage Round England William Henry Giles Kingston 1847
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The lantern consists of a brilliant catoptric fixed light, produced by nineteen Argand lamps.
A Yacht Voyage Round England William Henry Giles Kingston 1847
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He'd make a good Kennedy. catoptric Dec 8th 2011 9:13 GMT
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"But to return to the catastrophe of the Socratics:" By the time that the philosophical experiments in 'diving without hydraulics' had cleaned me entirely out, it was suggested that any thing in the shape of a loan would be desirable; they were not nice -- not they; a pair of globes; a set of catoptric instruments; an electrical apparatus; a few antique busts; or a collection of books for the library; -- any old rum, as
mollusque commented on the word catoptric
This catoptric theater was contrived to take away your identity and make you feel unsure not only of yourself but also of the very objects standing between you and the mirrors.
--Umberto Eco, 1988, Foucault's Pendulum, p. 13
September 29, 2008