refractive index

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noun Optics.

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Origin of refractive index

First recorded in 1830–40

Words nearby refractive index

refract, refractile, refracting telescope, refraction, refractive, refractive index, refractivity, refractometer, refractor, refractory, refractory period

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use refractive index in a sentence

A helpful pictorial index provides photographs of the actual objects.
The Best Coffee Table Books of 2014|Robert Birnbaum|December 13, 2014|DAILY BEAST
There is an expanded place-name index with more than 150,000 entries, and separate undersea, Moon, and Mars features.
The Best Coffee Table Books of 2014|Robert Birnbaum|December 13, 2014|DAILY BEAST
He stuck his index finger in the red welt around the spot where bin Laden shot me.
I Shot Bin Laden|Elliot Ackerman|November 16, 2014|DAILY BEAST
The country was ranked 144 of 177 nations surveyed by Transparency International in its 2013 graft perception index.
Corruption Eats Away at Ukraine Military|Charles McPhedran|October 21, 2014|DAILY BEAST

He soon invents the “Efram Daniels Expulsion Index (EDEI) … a hybrid futures and prediction market.”
In a New Novel, Apathetic Teenagers Usher in the Apocalypse|Elliot Ackerman|June 9, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Under the one-sixth they appear as slender, highly refractive fibers with double contour and, often, curled or split ends.
A Manual of Clinical Diagnosis|James Campbell Todd
Cystin crystals are colorless, highly refractive, rather thick, hexagonal plates with well-defined edges.
A Manual of Clinical Diagnosis|James Campbell Todd
Yeast-cells are smooth, colorless, highly refractive, spheric or ovoid cells.
A Manual of Clinical Diagnosis|James Campbell Todd
The degree of pallor furnishes a rough index to the amount of hemoglobin in the corpuscle.
A Manual of Clinical Diagnosis|James Campbell Todd
Wright and his followers regard the opsonic index as an index of the power of the body to combat bacterial invasion.
A Manual of Clinical Diagnosis|James Campbell Todd

British Dictionary definitions for refractive index

refractive index

noun

physics a measure of the extent to which radiation is refracted on passing through the interface between two media. It is the ratio of the sine of the angle of incidence to the sine of the angle of refraction, which can be shown to be equal to the ratio of the phase speed in the first medium to that in the second. In the case of electromagnetic radiation, esp light, it is usual to give values of the absolute refractive index of a medium, that is for radiation entering the medium from free spaceSymbol: ν, μ

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012