refract
Americanverb (used with object)
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refracts,
present (3rd person singular)
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refracted,
past participle, past
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refracting
present participle
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to subject to refraction.
-
to determine the refractive condition of (an eye).
verb
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to cause to undergo refraction
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to measure the refractive capabilities of (the eye, a lens, etc)
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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refractednessnoun
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nonrefractingadjective
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refractableadjective
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unrefractedadjective
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unrefractingadjective
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refractedlyadverb
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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refractsimple
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refractssimple
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have refractedperfect
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has refractedperfect
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am refractingprogressive
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are refractingprogressive
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is refractingprogressive
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have been refractingperfect progressive
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has been refractingperfect progressive
Past
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refractedsimple
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had refractedperfect
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was refractingprogressive
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were refractingprogressive
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had been refractingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of refract
1605–15; < Latin refrāctus, past participle of refringere to break, force back, equivalent to re- re- + frac- (variant stem of frangere to break ) + -tus past participle suffix
Explanation
Things that refract light — like lenses and prisms — bend it. If you've looked through a water droplet on a car windshield, you've seen water refract light. You're most likely to come across the verb refract when you're studying physics and the properties of light waves. We come across examples of this everyday, though — when you study a straw in a glass of water, you see the water refract light in a way that makes the straw look bent or jagged. A rainbow also happens when raindrops refract light, breaking it into its component colors. In Latin, refract means "broken up."
Vocabulary lists containing refract
Give Me a Break!: Fract and Frag
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Unwind
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Breadcrumbs
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Our legal institutions and the broader culture refract their policy values back at each other.
From Slate ● May 26, 2026
Their stories reflect and refract the themes of “On the Road” for today.
From Salon ● Jul. 30, 2025
The same physics that makes light refract into patterns on the bottom of a swimming pool or causes stars to twinkle in the night sky also causes DISS.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 26, 2024
“We mourn her loss but it’s a comfort to know that her penetrating works will dazzle, shine and refract in the minds of readers for generations to come,” Farmer said.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 17, 2023
They refract it through their glasses so she cannot see, so she cannot identify the guilty ones.
From "Dreaming in Cuban" by Cristina García
We might be told that color has something to do with light, or even be shown a prism, through which light refracts to produce a rainbow.
From Salon ● Nov. 16, 2024
In the retina of an animal's eye, there is a small pit called the fovea that refracts the light entering the eye.
From Science Daily ● May 30, 2024
It is also known as a Bravais' arc, and is formed when sunlight enters horizontal ice crystals and refracts through a side prism face, which causes the upside-down effect.
From BBC ● May 29, 2023
Like Lin-Manuel Miranda’s trailblazer, “Sylvia” refracts history through an ethnically and musically diverse lens: The music by Josh Cohen and D.J.
From New York Times ● Feb. 16, 2023
Of course—he had forgotten that water refracts, bends light.
From "Hatchet" by Gary Paulsen
The French come closest to a grand national idea—liberté, egalité, fraternité, although this is refracted through repeated failures to convert those principles into stable governance.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 2, 2026
These machines shoot UV light tens of thousands of times through drops of molten tin, which creates a plasma, and is then refracted through a series of specialised mirrors.
From BBC ● May 18, 2025
Still, there’s also something kind of profound in contemplating 2000, even if it is refracted through this movie’s silly lens.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 6, 2024
The reddish color comes from the light being refracted by particles in the atmosphere.
From Slate ● Apr. 5, 2024
As I stepped through the door and my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I discerned yellowed teeth, naked sockets fitted with glass orbs that refracted the firelight.
From "The City Beautiful" by Aden Polydoros
Mr. Self has great fun refracting the details of who did what to whom and where.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 20, 2026
Democritus believed that light refracting through atoms caused the phenomenon that we perceive and describe conventionally, or by mutual agreement, as color.
From Salon ● Nov. 16, 2024
Smartphones can act as anxiety incubators, amplifying the sense of abundant possibility like a prism refracting light.
From Slate ● Aug. 3, 2024
They number in the thousands, light striking the phalanx of lenses arrayed on a face in geometric pattern, the beams refracting through transparent mounds no wider than a hair.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 23, 2023
Alight placed above the center of the tank shines through the water, refracting as it ripples.
From "Allegiant" by Veronica Roth
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
