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e specified order. -- Broken meat, fragments of meat or other food. -- Broken number, a fraction. -- Broken weather, unsettled weather.

Pertaining to, produced by, or involving, both the reflection and refraction of light; as, a catadioptric light. Hutton.

urfaces are called catacaustic when formed by reflection, and diacaustic when formed by refraction.

lculated in the best possible way, the process is difficult and complex. Whewell. Complex fraction. See Fraction. -- Complex number (Math.), in the theory of numbers, an expression of the form a + bsq. root-1, when a and b are ordinary integers.

ets inclosed in a common calyxlike involucre, as the sunflower or dandelion. -- Compound fraction. (Math.) See Fraction. -- Compound fracture. See Fracture. -- Compound householder, a householder who compounds or arranges with his landlord that his rates shall be included in his rents. [Eng.] -- Compound interest. S…

ntinued fever (Med.), a fever which presents no interruption in its course. -- Continued fraction (Math.), a fraction whose numerator is 1, and whose denominator is a whole number plus a fraction whose numerator is 1 and whose denominator is a whole number, plus a fraction, and so on. -- Continued proportion (Math.),…

ey; when addressed to several different correspondents, or when the money can be drawn in fractional sums in several different places, it is called a circular letter of credit. -- Public credit. (a) The reputation of, or general confidence in, the ability or readiness of a government to fulfull its pecuniary engagemen…

Not parallel; lying or falling athwart; transverse; oblique; intersecting. The cross refraction of the second prism. Sir I. Newton.

imal arithmetic, the common arithmetic, in which numeration proceeds by tens. -- Decimal fraction, a fraction in which the denominator is some power of 10, as -- Decimal point, a dot or full stop at the left of a decimal fraction. The figures at the left of the point represent units or whole numbers, as 1.05.…

A deviation of the rays of light toward the surface of an opaque body; inflection; diffraction.

That number placed below the line in vulgar fractions which shows into how many parts the integer or unit is divided.

Pertaining to, or possessing the properties of, a species of caustic curves formed by refraction. See Caustic surface, under Caustic.

the parts of which do not correspond in size or proportion; difform leaves. The unequal refractions of difform rays. Sir I. Newton.

That produces diffraction.

Of or pertaining to dioptrics; assisting vision by means of the refraction of light; refractive; as, the dioptric system; a dioptric glass or telescope. "Dioptrical principles." Nichol. Dioptric curve (Geom.), a Cartesian oval. See under Cartesian.

The science of the refraction of light; that part of geometrical optics which treats of the laws of the refraction of light in passing from one medium into another, or through different mediums, as air, water, or glass, and esp. through different lenses; -- distinguished from catoptrics, which refers to reflected light…

(Opt.), the relative effect of a material in separating the different rays of light by refraction, as when the substance is formed into a prism. -- Dis*pers"ive*ness, n.

ition of water or of other volatile solvent; as, the dry distillation of citric acid. -- Fractional distillation. (Chem.) See under Fractional.

ble point. -- Double quarrel. (Eccl. Law) See Duplex querela, under Duplex. -- Double refraction. (Opt.) See Refraction. -- Double salt. (Chem.) (a) A mixed salt of any polybasic acid which has been saturated by different bases or basic radicals, as the double carbonate of sodium and potassium, NaKCO3.6H2O. (b) A mo…

rface of an ellipsoid (see Pedal); a surface used in explaining the phenomena of double refraction and their relation to the elastic force of the luminous ether in crystalline media.