I. ˈreˌfleks sometimes rə̇ˈf- or rēˈf- noun
( -es )
Etymology: Latin reflexus, past participle of reflectere to reflect
1. : reflected heat, light, or color ; specifically : light represented as reflected from an illuminated surface to one in shade (as in a painting)
2.
a. : a mirrored image
like the reflex of the moon seen in a wave — P.B.Shelley
b. : a copy that reflects an original in essential features or peculiar characteristics
to make legislation a reflex of the popular will — W.E.H.Lecky
3.
a. obsolete : considered thought or statement
b. obsolete : a glancing reference : allusion
4.
a. or reflex act : an act (as a movement) performed automatically and without conscious volition in consequence of a nervous impulse transmitted inward by afferent fibers from a receptor to a nerve center and commonly through adjustor neurones outward by efferent fibers to an effector (as a muscle or gland)
b. or reflex action : the whole process comprising reception, transmission, and reaction that culminates in such an act
c. reflexes plural : the power of acting or responding with adequate speed
his strength and the agility in his legs were gone and his reflexes no longer as they had been — Ernest Hemingway
his reflexes are gone … I will never okay him to fight again — Time
d. : an automatic or strongly habitual and predictable way of thinking or behaving
to obscure emotion was becoming for him a natural reflex — Truman Capote
the dangers of this wholesale conditioning of human mental reflexes — New Republic
5.
a. : a phonemic, grammatical, or vocabulary element as found in a language in a form determined by development from an earlier stage of the language
b. : a cognate element
II. adjective
Etymology: Latin reflexus, past participle of reflectere
1. : bent, turned, or directed back : reversed in direction or course : reflected
reflex current in a river
stem with reflex leaves
2. : directed back upon the mind or its operations : introspective
3. : produced in reaction, in resistance, or in return
monetary deflation is the reflex consequence of undue inflation
4. of an angle : greater than two and less than four right angles : being between 180° and 360° — see angle illustration
5.
a. : of, relating to, or produced by stimulus without necessarily the intervention of consciousness
reflex contraction of the iris
b. : relating to, marked by, connected with, or constituting a reflex
reflex center
6. : having an amplifier tube functioning simultaneously as both a radio-frequency and an audio-frequency amplifier by leading the current through a tube both before and after detection
reflex receiving set
7. : relating to the reproduction of print or other graphic matter by means of a contact printing method in which light transmitted through light-sensitive material is reflected back onto the material from the matter to be reproduced
reflex paper
reflex copying