OPTICAL • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • Definition of Optical

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/ˈɑptɪkəl/ Listen

adjective

Optical, Optic adj.

1.

Of, pertaining to, or using vision or sight; as, optical illusions.

Synonyms: ocular, optic, visual. "The moon, whose orb Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views."

2.

Of or pertaining to the eye; ocular; as, the optic nerves (the first pair of cranial nerves) which are distributed to the retina; the optic (or optical) axis of the eye.

3.

Relating to the science of optics or to devices designed to assist vision; as, optical works; optical equipment.

Optic angle (Opt.), the angle included between the optic axes of the two eyes when directed to the same point; sometimes called binocular parallax.

Optic axis. (Opt.)

(a)

A line drawn through the center of the eye perpendicular to its anterior and posterior surfaces. In a normal eye it is in the direction of the optic axis that objects are most distinctly seen.

(b)

The line in a doubly refracting crystal, in the direction of which no double refraction occurs. A uniaxial crystal has one such line, a biaxial crystal has two.

Optical circle (Opt.), a graduated circle used for the measurement of angles in optical experiments.

Optical square, a surveyor's instrument with reflectors for laying off right angles.

See images of 'Optical'

Etymology of 'Optical'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Optical" Quotes from Famous Books

... also best made of glass, as garnet or any red stone will look almost black in such large pieces. Red carnelian has a sort of brick-red color, which has a cheap appearance. There is a new phosphorus glass used by optical instrument makers which is intensely hard, and if colored ruby-red makes a beautiful pallet jewel, which will afford as much service as if real stones were used; they are no cheaper than carnelian pallets, but much richer looking. The prettiest cap for the balance ...

— Watch and Clock Escapements • Anonymous

... of these overall complexities that must be met with automatic accuracy was the Starrett Analogue/Digital Computer, Optical Wave type 44-63, irreverently referred to by the acronymically-minded as Sad Cow, though more frequently as the Sacred Cow, or ...

— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond

... themselves in a fine series of concentric circles round that little sun. It is demonstrable that the scratches are going everywhere impartially and it is only your candle which produces the flattering illusion of a concentric arrangement, its light falling with an exclusive optical selection. These things are a parable. The scratches are events, and the candle is the egoism of any person now absent—of Miss Vincy, for example. Rosamond had a Providence of her own who had kindly made her more charming than other girls, and who seemed ...

— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... baffling the penetration, of those who were merely spectators, and uninitiated in the mystery of the arts that were practised upon them. Such was no doubt the case with the speaking heads and statues, which were sometimes exhibited in the ancient oracles. Such was the case with certain optical delusions, which were practised on the unsuspecting, and were contrived to produce on them the effect of supernatural revelations. Such is the story of Bel and the Dragon in the book of Apocrypha, where the priests daily placed before the idol twelve measures of flour, and forty sheep, and ...

— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin

... retina can hold apart more than one thousand stimulations per second, that there is, in fact, no such thing as fusion, is a supposition which is in such striking contrast to all previous explanations of optical phenomena, that it should be accepted only if no other theory can do justice to them. It is hoped that the following pages will show that the facts do not demand ...

— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various

Copyright © 2026 Free-Translator.com