Crossword clues for refract
refract
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Refract \Re*fract"\ (r?*fr$kt"), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Refracted; p. pr. & vb. n. Refracting.] [L. refractus, p. p. of refringere; pref. re- re- + frangere to break: cf. F. r['e]fracter. SEe FRacture, and cf. Refrain, n.]
To bend sharply and abruptly back; to break off.
To break the natural course of, as rays of light orr heat, when passing from one transparent medium to another of different density; to cause to deviate from a direct course by an action distinct from reflection; as, a dense medium refrcts the rays of light as they pass into it from a rare medium.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
"to bend" (light, sound, heat, etc.), 1610s, back-formation from refraction, and in part from Latin refractus, past participle of refringere. Related: Refracted; refracting.
Wiktionary
vb. 1 (context intransitive of light English) To change direction as a result of entering a different medium 2 (context transitive optics English) To cause (light) to change direction as a result of entering a different medium.
WordNet
v. subject to refraction; "refract a light beam"
determine the refracting power of (a lens)
Wikipedia
Usage examples of "refract".
The parquet floor, the great wall panels, the allegorical ceiling dangling its chandeliers: all must be erected and connected, and suffusing and refracting golden light.
In the onrush and annealment of his pain he leans toward pretty bonsai and a multicolored field of flowers, flowers to loop and strangle, their fuses clambering toward her throat and into her thighs, the stink refracted, the secret folding and unfolding of petals and of lips.
Beyond the rink, the floor of the cave was one huge mass of blue ice, humped and creased, refracting the lights and fading into the distance.
The unlidded window casts a square spotlight down through the refracting corpuscles of moisture and culminates in a faint rainbow beside me.
Interposed between the axis-cylinder and this tube, there is a fluid, containing a considerable quantity of fatty matter, from which is deposited a highly refracting substance which lines the tube.
For a moment I thought that I was perhaps experiencing sunlight as it was being refracted by my eyelashes.
Voices are refracted, juxtaposed, but never assimilated or eliminated.
The sunset fires, refracted from the cloud-driftage of the autumn sky, bathed the canyon with crimson, in which ruddy-limbed madronos and wine-wooded manzanitas burned and smoldered.
If this were so, it is not the only instance in which the preexistent discolorations in the mind of an inspired prophet have refracted the truth of his burden into distorted error and bequeathed the task of a future rectification when more light shall have come.
If the refracting atmosphere were some 65 miles in depth, these proportions were correct.
Either a body absorbs light, or it reflects or refracts it, or it does all three.
If it neither reflects nor refracts nor absorbs light, it cannot of itself be visible.
Either a body absorbs light, or it reflects or refracts it, or does all these things.
Above it, the shock wave hangs in the air, rushing toward her at the speed of sound, a lens of air that flattens and refracts everything on the other side.
Thus, the lens is normally rather flat and refracts light comparatively little.