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To bend sharply and abruptly back; to break off.

Capable of being refracted.

Bent backward angularly, as if half-broken; as, a refracted stem or leaf.

Serving or tending to refract; as, a refracting medium. Refracting angle of a prism (Opt.), the angle of a triangular prism included between the two sides through which the refracted beam passes in the decomposition of light. -- Refracting telescope. (Opt.) See under Telescope.

The act of refracting, or the state of being refracted.

Serving or having power to refract, or turn from a direct course; pertaining to refraction; as, refractive surfaces; refractive powers. Refractive index. (Opt.) See Index of refraction, under Index. -- Absolute refractive index (Opt.), the index of refraction of a substances when the ray passes into it from a vacuum.…

The quality or condition of being refractive.

A contrivance for exhibiting and measuring the refraction of light.

Anything that refracts; specifically: (Opt.)

In a refractory manner; perversely; obstinately.

The quality or condition of being refractory.

Obstinate in disobedience; contumacious; stubborn; unmanageable; as, a refractory child; a refractory beast. Raging appetites that are Most disobedient and refractory. Shak.

A second breaking (as of a badly set bone) by the surgeon.

osed usually of two separate lenses, a convex and concave, of substances having different refractive and dispersive powers, as crown and flint glass, with the curvatures so adjusted that the chromatic aberration produced by the one is corrected by other, and light emerges from the compound lens undecomposed. -- Achrom…

rved 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.

Any abnormal condition of the refracting powers of the eye. -- Am`e*trop"ic, a.

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.

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

Unequal refractive power in the two eyes.