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Aberration   /ˌæbərˈeɪʃən/   Listen
noun
Aberration  n.  
1.
The act of wandering; deviation, especially from truth or moral rectitude, from the natural state, or from a type. "The aberration of youth." "Aberrations from theory."
2.
A partial alienation of reason. "Occasional aberrations of intellect." "Whims, which at first are the aberrations of a single brain, pass with heat into epidemic form."
3.
(Astron.) A small periodical change of position in the stars and other heavenly bodies, due to the combined effect of the motion of light and the motion of the observer; called annual aberration, when the observer's motion is that of the earth in its orbit, and daily or diurnal aberration, when of the earth on its axis; amounting when greatest, in the former case, to 20.4'', and in the latter, to 0.3''. Planetary aberration is that due to the motion of light and the motion of the planet relative to the earth.
4.
(Opt.) The convergence to different foci, by a lens or mirror, of rays of light emanating from one and the same point, or the deviation of such rays from a single focus; called spherical aberration, when due to the spherical form of the lens or mirror, such form giving different foci for central and marginal rays; and chromatic aberration, when due to different refrangibilities of the colored rays of the spectrum, those of each color having a distinct focus.
5.
(Physiol.) The passage of blood or other fluid into parts not appropriate for it.
6.
(Law) The producing of an unintended effect by the glancing of an instrument, as when a shot intended for A glances and strikes B.
Synonyms: Insanity; lunacy; madness; derangement; alienation; mania; dementia; hallucination; illusion; delusion. See Insanity.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Aberration" Quotes from Famous Books



... would hardly dare to suggest, is accomplished as a matter of course by simple peasants in their devotion to whatever method of salvation they believe to be in accordance with God's will. Thus came into existence the self-mutilators, or skoptzi, victims, no doubt, of some mental aberration, some misdirected sense of duty, but yet ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot

... of it," replied Trublet. "But listen to what Professor Ball says on the same page. 'It is an incontestable fact that medical men are excessively predisposed to mental aberration.' Nothing is truer. Among medical men, those who are more especially predestined to insanity are the alienists. It is often difficult to determine which of the two is the crazier, the madman or his doctor. People ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France

... secretary he had been, he eked out a living by tutoring in mathematics. Friends of his philosophy rallied to his support. He never occupied a post comparable with his genius. He was unhappy in his marriage. He passed through a period of mental aberration, due, perhaps, to the strain under which he worked. He did not regain his liberty without an experience which embittered him against the Church. During the fourteen years of the production of his book he cut himself ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore

... picturesque poetry than it is incomparably the most offensive to good taste and natural instinct on the score of style and treatment. Marlowe's "Hero and Leander" can only be classed with these elaborate studies of sensual aberration or excess by those "who can see no difference between Titian and French photographs." (I take leave, for once in a way, to quote from a private letter—long since addressed to the present commentator by the most illustrious of writers ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... of a daw or a magpie, a strange sound of derision. At such times Miss Frost's heart went cold within her. She dared not realize. And she chid and checked her ward, restored her to the usual impulsive, affectionate demureness. Then she dismissed the whole matter. It was just an accidental aberration on the girl's part from her own true nature. Miss Frost taught Alvina thoroughly the qualities of her own true nature, and Alvina believed what she was taught. She remained for twenty years the demure, refined creature of her governess' ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence


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