catoptric

English

Etymology

From Ancient Greek κατοπτικός (katoptikós), from κάτοπτρον (kátoptron, “mirror”).

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA(key): /kaˈtɒptɹɪk/

Adjective

catoptric

  1. of, relating to, or produced by mirrors or reflections
    • 1989, Nick Cave, And the Ass Saw the Angel:
      It leaned, toppled forward, and loomed out over the water's grim catoptric surface that stretched before her, and then completing a half-somersault plunged headlong into the shallows of the abysmal, baptismal bilge.

Noun

catoptric (plural catoptrics)

  1. (now only in the plural) The branch of optics dealing with reflection.
    • 1621, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy, Oxford: Printed by Iohn Lichfield and Iames Short, for Henry Cripps, OCLC 216894069; The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd corrected and augmented edition, Oxford: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, 1624, OCLC 54573970, (please specify |partition=1, 2, or 3):
      , I.iii.3:
      'tis ordinary to see strange uncouth sights by catoptrics; who knows not that if in a dark room the light be admitted at one only little hole, and a paper or glass put upon it, the sun shining will represent on the opposite wall all such objects as are illuminated by his rays?

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