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Reflection   /rəflˈɛkʃən/  /rɪflˈɛkʃən/   Listen
noun
Reflection  n.  (Written also reflexion)  
1.
The act of reflecting, or turning or sending back, or the state of being reflected. Specifically:
(a)
The return of rays, beams, sound, or the like, from a surface. See Angle of reflection, below. "The eye sees not itself, But by reflection, by some other things."
(b)
The reverting of the mind to that which has already occupied it; continued consideration; meditation; contemplation; hence, also, that operation or power of the mind by which it is conscious of its own acts or states; the capacity for judging rationally, especially in view of a moral rule or standard. "By reflection,... I would be understood to mean, that notice which the mind takes of its own operations, and the manner of them, by reason whereof there come to be ideas of these operations in the understanding." "This delight grows and improves under thought and reflection."
2.
Shining; brightness, as of the sun. (Obs.)
3.
That which is produced by reflection. Specifically:
(a)
An image given back from a reflecting surface; a reflected counterpart. "As the sun water we can bear, Yet not the sun, but his reflection, there."
(b)
A part reflected, or turned back, at an angle; as, the reflection of a membrane.
(c)
Result of meditation; thought or opinion after attentive consideration or contemplation; especially, thoughts suggested by truth. "Job's reflections on his once flourishing estate did at the same time afflict and encourage him."
4.
Censure; reproach cast. "He died; and oh! may no reflection shed Its poisonous venom on the royal dead."
5.
(Physiol.) The transference of an excitement from one nerve fiber to another by means of the nerve cells, as in reflex action. See Reflex action, under Reflex.
Angle of reflection, the angle which anything, as a ray of light, on leaving a reflecting surface, makes with the perpendicular to the surface.
Angle of total reflection. (Opt.) Same as Critical angle, under Critical.
Synonyms: Meditation; contemplation; rumination; cogitation; consideration; musing; thinking.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Reflection" Quotes from Famous Books



... reporters, daughters of plumbers, boarding-house women, and what not! What was worse, according to her past ideas, she had never felt so interested, so warm and comfortable in her heart, in short so human as she did now. So, after that brief interval of reflection, she turned toward the bright-eyed Molly and ...
— Divided Skates • Evelyn Raymond
... trace of effort or of affectation, or even of extravagance. Shrewd common sense there was in abundance. There was the involved disrupted style also, but it looked so natural that reflection was needed to recognise in it that very style which purists find to be un-English and unintelligible. Over the angles of this disrupted style rolled out a few cascades of humour—quite as if by accident. ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... expect and demand a thousand things, which they cannot now have; and sometimes the more earnest ones are inclined to take the missionaries by the throat, with a 'Pay us that ye owe!' We are encouraged by the reflection that such experiences necessarily enter into such a work of awakening and reform, as is ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... returning from a long ride with Miss Assher, went up to his dressing-room, and seated himself with an air of considerable lassitude before his mirror. The reflection there presented of his exquisite self was certainly paler and more worn than usual, and might excuse the anxiety with which he first felt his pulse, and then laid his ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... read about, we think the most interesting is John Adams; nor do we know where to find a more beautiful example of the value of early good instruction than in the history of this man—who, having run the full career of most kinds of vice, was so effectually pulled up by an interval of leisurely reflection, and the sense of new duties awakened by the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 492 - Vol. 17, No. 492. Saturday, June 4, 1831 • Various


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