The Collaborative International Dictionary
Parabolic \Par`a*bol"ic\, Parabolical \Par`a*bol"ic*al\, a. [Gr. paraboliko`s figurative: cf. F. parabolique. See Parable.]
Of the nature of a parable; expressed by a parable or figure; allegorical; as, parabolical instruction.
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[From Parabola.] (Geom.)
Having the form or nature of a parabola; pertaining to, or resembling, a parabola; as, a parabolic curve.
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Having a form like that generated by the revolution of a parabola, or by a line that moves on a parabola as a directing curve; as, a parabolic conoid; a parabolic reflector; a parabolic antenna.
Parabolic conoid, a paraboloid; a conoid whose directing curve is a parabola. See Conoid.
Parabolic mirror (Opt.), a mirror having a paraboloidal surface which gives for parallel rays (as those from very distant objects) images free from aberration. It is used in reflecting telescopes.
Parabolic spindle, the solid generated by revolving the portion of a parabola cut off by a line drawn at right angles to the axis of the curve, about that line as an axis.
Parabolic spiral, a spiral curve conceived to be formed by the periphery of a semiparabola when its axis is wrapped about a circle; also, any other spiral curve having an analogy to the parabola.
WordNet
n. a parabolic reflector for light radiation
Usage examples of "parabolic mirror".
That parabolic mirror gathers in the scattered rays, focusses them on the selenium cell which you saw in the middle of the reflector, and that causes the cell to vary the amount of electric current passing through it from a battery of storage cells.
He might even, he realized with a twinge, drift into the focus of the parabolic mirror, which would put his field-effect suit to a test its designers had probably never envisioned.
Had the elevation of the parabolic mirror been a few yards higher, none could have lived to tell the tale.
Position number two was a parabolic mirror with a silvery knob at the center.
Slowly he assembled the big parabolic mirror, the sighting mechanism and the atomic converter.
The parabolic mirror out on the hull was aimed at the gleaming arc-lamp of Venus, only ten million kilometers away and moving on an almost parallel path.
The camera was positioned somewhere near the ceiling in a phony smoke detector, Klecker told me later-and the lens was a fisheye, foreshortening the sides of the room much like the gold-framed parabolic mirror that hung in my parents' foyer.
A moment later, as I examined it more closely, I saw that instead of looking at anything he had before him a small parabolic mirror turned away from him.
The silver flash of a parabolic mirror twinkled in his raised hands, a nerve-disruptor muzzle.