Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In botany, same as reflexed, but abruptly bent from the base.
  • Bent sharply backward from the base, as the spines of some animals.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective (Bot. & Zoöl.) Bent backward angularly, as if half-broken.
  • adjective Turned from a direct course by refraction.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb Simple past tense and past participle of refract.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • The sunset fires, refracted from the cloud-driftage of the autumn sky, bathed the canyon with crimson, in which ruddy-limbed mandronos and wine-wooded manzanitas burned and smoldered.

    CHAPTER XVII 2010

  • At another time it might have been a pretty journey, the hills just turning the colors of pumpkin and hay and pomegranate and the skies depthless and clear, but now everywhere one looked most of the trees had been felled for fuel and there was only a hazy, oppressive brightness refracted from the shorn hillsides.

    Excerpt: The Surrendered by Chang-rae Lee 2010

  • Its oblique rays refracted from the floating frost particles till the air was filled with glittering jewel-dust -- resplendent, blazing, flashing light and fire, but cold as outer space.

    CHAPTER 14 2010

  • On the wall their twined shadows waltzed, one large and one small, four-square skirts, one dipping and swaying, one stationary and punched through with arcane symbols that wrote themselves on the walls in refracted light.

    Monday Morning, FedEx Ground, and Wishes... deep_bluze 2004

  • The sunset fires, refracted from the cloud-driftage of the autumn sky, bathed the canyon with crimson, in which ruddy-limbed mandronos and wine-wooded manzanitas burned and smoldered.

    Chapter 17 1913

  • The sun's rays were refracted from the pavement and buildings -- the stoppage of the public fountains -- the bad quality of the food, and scarcity even of that, produced a state of suffering, which was aggravated by the scourge of disease; while the garrison arrogated every superfluity to themselves, adding by waste and riot to the necessary evils of the time.

    II.2 1826

  • The automobile headlights theory was again advanced, as was the idea of refracted starlight and fox fire, which is a phosphorescent glow emitted by certain fungi on rotting wood.

    The Taste of Coins from Treasure Troves 2010

  • The second region or stratum of air terminates I suppose where the twilight ceases to be refracted, that is, where the air is 3000 times rarer than at the surface of the earth; and where it seems probable that the common air ends, and is surrounded by an atmosphere of inflammable gas tenfold rarer than itself.

    The Botanic Garden A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: the Economy of Vegetation Erasmus Darwin 1766

  • The light "refracted" by the "material" of the mirror distorts the fluting of the pilaster seen behind.

    Architecture and Memory: The Renaissance Studioli of Federico da Montefeltro 2008

  • "The unapproachable light of God in himself" is 'refracted' through the human face of Christ upon us.

    Royal Academy of Arts Byzantium Lecture 'Icons and the Practice of Prayer' 2009

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