Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Of, relating to, resembling, or being a prism.
- adjective Formed by refraction of light through a prism. Used of a spectrum of light.
- adjective Brilliantly colored; iridescent.
from The Century Dictionary.
- In anatomy, noting muscles whose fibers run direct and parallel with one another from the point of origin to the point of insertion: correlative with
pyramidal , 3, andrhomboidal , 2. - Of or pertaining to a prism; having the form of a prism.
- Separated or distributed by, or as if by, a transparent prism; formed by a prism; varied in color: as, a prismatic spectrum; prismatic colors.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Resembling, or pertaining to, a prism.
- adjective Separated or distributed by a prism; formed by a prism.
- adjective (Crystallog.) Same as
Orthorhombic . - adjective (Chem.) borax crystallized in the form of oblique prisms, with ten molecules of water; -- distinguished from
octahedral borax . - adjective (Opt.) the seven colors into which light is resolved when passed through a prism; primary colors. See Primary colors, under
Color . - adjective (Surv.) a compass having a prism for viewing a distant object and the compass card at the same time.
- adjective (Opt.) the spectrum produced by the passage of light through a prism.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Of or pertaining to a
prism ; having the form of a prism; containing one or more prisms. - adjective Separated or distributed by, or as if by, a
transparent prism; formed by a prism; varied orbrilliant incolor .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective exhibiting spectral colors formed by refraction of light through a prism
- adjective of or relating to or resembling or constituting a prism
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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Once you accept a few basic concepts — that there are three primary colors and that the same three basic colors exist as rays in prismatic light, that colors are seen because that portion of light is destroyed when it reaches a colored surface, that white (i.e., light) is necessary to see color and black — then you understand that, when the three true primitives are perfectly combined, all rays of light are destroyed and that therefore that combination is the negation of light.
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I've said, is not emerald green, as most folks think -- that is, not unless it is seen under what science-folks call the prismatic action of light -- but a dull white that is almost opaque.
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I recalled prismatic music-hall posters -- of enormous acreage -- that had been the unnoticed background of my visits to London for years past.
A Diversity of Creatures Rudyard Kipling 1900
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Researchers randomly assigned 153 of these children, ages 8 to 13, to wear either single-vision glasses, standard bifocals or so-called prismatic bifocals for two years.
WN.com - Articles related to Why children need more sleep 2010
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What we need here is prismatic, which is flat cells.
GigaOM Network 2009
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A123 and Chrysler developed battery systems that use the same battery cell -- one with a flat shape known as a prismatic cell -- rather than tailoring the cells 'chemistries for each different vehicle.
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Each module is made up of what is known as a prismatic cell
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A123 and Chrysler developed battery systems that use the same battery cell -- one with a flat shape known as a prismatic cell -- rather than tailoring the cells 'chemistries for each different vehicle.
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Each module is made up of what is known as a prismatic cell
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Each module is made up of what is known as a prismatic cell
knitandpurl commented on the word prismatic
"But even apart from rare moments such as these, in which suddenly we feel the original entity quiver and resume its form, carve itself out of syllables now dead, if in the dizzy whirl of daily life, in which they serve only the most practical purpose, names have lost all their colour, like a prismatic top that spins too quickly and seems only grey, when, on the other hand, we reflect upon the past in our day-dreams and seek, in order to recapture it, to slacken, to suspend the perpetual motion by which we are borne along, gradually we see once more appear, side by side but entirely distinct from one another, the tints which in the course of our existence have been successively presented to us by a single name."
--The Guermantes Way by Marcel Proust, translated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, Revised by D.J. Enright, pp 5-6 of the Modern Library paperback edition
July 13, 2008
knitandpurl commented on the word prismatic
"'All the poetry that the old quarters contain has been squeezed out to the last drop, but if you look at some of the houses that have been built lately for well-to-do tradesmen in the new districts, where the stone is all freshly cut and still to white, don't they seem to rend the torrid midday air of July, at the hour when the shopkeepers go home to lunch in the suburbs, with a cry as sharp and acidulous as the smell of the cherries waiting for the meal to begin in the darkened dining-room, where the prismatic glass knife-rests throw off a multicoloured light as beautiful as the windows of Chartres?'"
--The Captive & The Fugitive by Marcel Proust, translated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, revised by D.J. Enright, p 218 of the Modern Library paperback edition
January 11, 2010
knitandpurl commented on the word prismatic
"She left the room, then returned, but I turned sharply away under the impact of the painful discharge of one of the thousand invisible memories which incessantly exploded around me in the darkness: I had noticed that she had brought me cider and cherries, things which a farm-lad had brought out to us in the carriage, at Balbec, "kinds" in which I should have made the most perfect communion, in those days, with the prismatic gleam in shuttered dining-rooms on days of scorching heat."
--The Captive & The Fugitive by Marcel Proust, translated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, revised by D.J. Enright, p 646 of the Modern Library paperback edition
February 15, 2010