Search the Dictionary

Having fine, short, and sharp points on the surface; as, the hackly fracture of metallic iron.

Wild or intractable; disposed to break away from duty; untamed; as, a haggard or refractory hawk. [Obs.] Shak

usually prismatically colored, round the sun or moon, and supposed to be caused by the refraction of light through crystals of ice in the atmosphere. Connected with halos there are often white bands, crosses, or arches, resulting from the same atmospheric conditions.

To dislocate or sprain the hip of, to fracture or injure the hip bone of (a quadruped) in such a manner as to produce a permanent depression of that side.

A condition of the eye in which, through shortness of the eyeball or fault of the refractive media, the rays of light come to a focus behind the retina; farsightedness; -- called also hyperopia. Cf. Emmetropia.

in Iceland. It is used for the prisms of the polariscope, because of its strong double refraction. Cf. Calcite.

Of habitual bad temper; peevish; fractious; cross; crabbed; surly; as, an ill-natured person.

a lens or mirror, by rays of light from the several points of the object symmetrically refracted or reflected to corresponding points in such focus; this may be received on a screen, a photographic plate, or the retina of the eye, and viewed directly by the eye, or with an eyeglass, as in the telescope and microscope;…

Immovable apparatus (Med.), an appliance, like the plaster of paris bandage, which keeps fractured parts firmly in place. -- Immovable feasts (Eccl.), feasts which occur on a certain day of the year and do not depend on the date of Easter; as, Christmas, the Epiphany, etc.

Driven together or close. Impacted fracture (Surg.), a fracture in which the fragments are driven into each other so as to be immovable.

ct power (Math.), a number which can not be produced by taking any whole number or vulgar fraction, as a factor, the number of times indicated by the power; thus, 9 is a perfect square, but an imperfect cube. -- Imperfect tense (Gram), a tense expressing past time and incomplete action.

Improper feud, an originalfeud, not earned by military service. Mozley & W. -- Improper fraction. See under Fraction.

r heat, falls on any surface. In equal incidences there is a considerable inequality of refractions. Sir I. Newton. Angle of incidence, the angle which a ray of light, or the line of incidence of a body, falling on any surface, makes with a perpendicular to that surface; also formerly, the complement of this angle. --…

The increase of a variable quantity or fraction from its present value to its next ascending value; the finite quantity, generally variable, by which a variable quantity is increased.

h having a second hand driven by a separate set of wheels, springs, etc., for timing to a fraction of a second. -- Independent variable. (Math.) See Dependent variable, under Dependent.

ntegral figures in the given number. It is also called the characteristic. -- Index of refraction, or Refractive index (Opt.), the number which expresses the ratio of the sine of the angle of incidence to the sine of the angle of refraction. Thus the index of refraction for sulphur is 2, because, when light passes out…

to incline, to deflect; to curve; to bow. Are they [the rays of the sun] not reflected, refracted, and inflected by one and the same principle Sir I. Newton.

Same as Diffraction. Point of inflection (Geom.), the point on opposite sides of which a curve bends in contrary ways.

A complete entity; a whole number, in contradistinction to a fraction or a mixed number. Complex integer (Theory of Numbers), an expression of the form a + bsq. root-1, where a and b are real integers.

Of, pertaining to, or being, a whole number or undivided quantity; not fractional.