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, especially by violence. [Obs.] Neither can the natural body of Christ be subject to any fraction or breaking up. Foxe.

Of or pertaining to fractions or a fraction; constituting a fraction; as, fractional numbers.

By fractions or separate portions; as, to distill a liquid fractionally, that is, so as to separate different portions.

Fractional. [Obs.]

To separate into different portions or fractions, as in the distillation of liquids.

emarked by Grimaldi (1665), and referred by him to a property of light which he called diffraction. Whewell. Diffraction grating. (Optics) See under Grating. -- Diffraction spectrum. (Optics) See under Spectrum.

e act of infracting or breaking; breach; violation; nonobservance; infringement; as, an infraction of a treaty, compact, rule, or law. I. Watts.

iquely a medium of a different density from that through which it has previously moved. Refraction out of the rarer medium into the denser, is made towards the perpendicular. Sir I. Newton.

To reduce to lower terms, as a fraction.

The art of calculating with any species of notation; as, the algorithms of fractions, proportions, surds, etc.

ed after the summits have passed into shadow, supposed to be due to a curving downward (refraction) of the light rays from the west resulting from the cooling of the air.

Produced by the refraction of light, as seen through water; as, anaclastic curves.

That part of optics which treats of the refraction of light; -- commonly called dioptrics. Encyc. Brit.

o the center of the eye. -- For Angles of commutation, draught, incidence, reflection, refraction, position, repose, fraction, see Commutation, Draught, Incidence, Reflection, Refraction, etc.

An anomalous state of refraction caused by the absence of the crystalline lens, as after operations for cataract. The remedy is the use of powerful convex lenses. Dunglison.

y on which another quantity in a table depends; as, the altitude is the argument of the refraction.

stronomical clock. See under Clock. -- Astronomical day. See under Day. -- Astronomical fractions, Astronomical numbers. See under Sexagesimal.

axis of a crystal, the direction in which a ray of transmitted light suffers no double refraction. All crystals, not of the isometric system, are either uniaxial or biaxial. -- Optic axis, Visual axis (Opt.), the straight line passing through the center of the pupil, and perpendicular to the surface of the eye. -- R…

e naphtha produced by the destructive distillation of coal, from which it is separated by fractional distillation. The name is sometimes applied also to the impure commercial product or benzole, and also, but rarely, to a similar mixed product of petroleum. Benzene nucleus, Benzene ring (Chem.), a closed chain or ring,…

Specifically: A breaking or infraction of a law, or of any obligation or tie; violation; non-fulfillment; as, a breach of contract; a breach of promise.