| Refetoff syndrome | <syndrome> A condition characterised by goiter and elevated serum level of thyroid hormones without manifestations of thyrotoxicosis, due to target organ unresponsiveness to thyroid hormones. (05 Mar 2000) |
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| Refetoff, S | <person> See: Refetoff syndrome. (05 Mar 2000) |
| refine | 1. To reduce to a fine, unmixed, or pure state; to free from impurities; to free from dross or alloy; to separate from extraneous matter; to purify; to defecate; as, to refine gold or silver; to refine iron; to refine wine or sugar. "I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined." (Zech. Xiii. 9) 2. To purify from what is gross, coarse, vulgar, inelegant, low, and the like; to make elegant or exellent; to polish; as, to refine the manners, the language, the style, the taste, the intellect, or the moral feelings. "Love refines The thoughts, and heart enlarges." (Milton) Synonym: To purify, clarify, polish, ennoble. Origin: Pref. Re- + fine to make fine: cf. F. Raffiner. 1. To become pure; to be cleared of feculent matter. "So the pure, limpid stream, when foul with stains, Works itself clear, and, as it runs, refines." (Addison) 2. To improve in accuracy, delicacy, or excellence. "Chaucer refined on Boccace, and mended his stories." (Dryden) "But let a lord once own the happy lines, How the wit brightens! How the style refines!" (Pope) 3. To affect nicety or subtilty in thought or language. "He makes another paragraph about our refining in controversy." Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998) |
| reflect | 1. To bend back. 2. To throw back, as of radiant energy from a surface. 3. To meditate; to think over a matter. 4. To send back a motor impulse in response to a sensory stimulus. Origin: L. Re-flecto, pp. -flexus, to bend back (05 Mar 2000) |
| reflected colours | Those colour's seen in light falling upon a pigmented surface. (05 Mar 2000) |
| reflected inguinal ligament | <anatomy> A triangular fibrous band extending from the aponeurosis of the external oblique to the pubic tubercle of the opposite side. See: aponeurosis of external abdominal oblique muscle. Synonym: ligamentum reflexum, Colles' ligament, fascia triangularis abdominis, reflex ligament, triangular fascia. (05 Mar 2000) |
| reflected light | Light directed backward from a mirror. (05 Mar 2000) |
| reflected ray | A ray of light or other form of radiant energy which is thrown back from a nonpermeable or nonabsorbing surface; the ray which strikes the surface before reflection is the incident ray. (05 Mar 2000) |
| reflecting | 1. Throwing back light, heat, etc, as a mirror or other surface. 2. Given to reflection or serious consideration; reflective; contemplative; as, a reflecting mind. Reflecting circle, an astronomical instrument for measuring angless, like the sextant or Hadley's quadrant, by the reflection of light from two plane mirrors which it carries, and differing from the sextant chiefly in having an entire circle. Reflecting galvanometer, a galvanometer in which the deflections of the needle are read by means of a mirror attached to it, which reflects a ray of light or the image of a scale; called also mirror galvanometer. Reflecting goniometer. See Goniometer. Reflecting telescope. See Telescope. Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998) |
| reflecting retinoscope | <instrument> A plane or concave mirror with a central perforation that allows the observer to see rays emerge from the subject's eye. (05 Mar 2000) |
| reflection | 1. The act of reflecting, or turning or sending back, or the state of being reflected. Specifically: 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." (Shak) 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." (Locke) "This delight grows and improves under thought and reflection." (South) 2. Shining; brightness, as of the sun. 3. That which is produced by reflection. Specifically: 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." (Dryden) A part reflected, or turned back, at an angle; as, the reflection of a membrane. 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." (Atterbury) 4. Censure; reproach cast. "He died; and oh! may no reflection shed Its poisonous venom on the royal dead." (Prior) 5. <physiology> The transference of an excitement from one nerve fibre 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. <optics> Same as Critical angle, under Critical. Synonym: Meditation, contemplation, rumination, cogitation, consideration, musing, thinking. Origin: Written also reflexion. Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998) |
| reflection coefficient | A measure of the relative permeability of a particular membrane to a particular solute; calculated as the ratio of observed osmotic pressure to that calculated from van't Hoff's law; also equal to 1 minus the ratio of the effective pore areas available to solute and to solvent. (05 Mar 2000) |
| reflection factor | <microscopy> The ratio of reflected light from a surface to the incident light. This is sometimes called the coefficient of reflection. Unless especially stated it takes into account both specular and diffuse reflection. (05 Aug 1998) |
| reflection X-ray microscopy | <technique> A method of producing enlarged images by means of X rays. In this method the radiation is totally reflected at glancing incidence from polished concave mirrors or from the curved surfaces of single crystals by Bragg reflection. The problem of aberration corrections still limits the resolution obtainable. (05 Aug 1998) |
| reflective | Capable of throwing back light, images, sound waves: reflecting. (18 Nov 1997) |