reflex

n. a physical movement that your body does automatically when something happens, without you thinking about it.

n. an involuntary and nearly instantaneous movement in response to a stimulus, mediated by the nervous system without conscious thought.

“The doctor tapped my knee with a small hammer to check my reflexes.”

“The patient exhibited a delayed reflex in the right leg, suggesting a potential issue with the lower spinal nerves.”

n. a word or sound in a modern language that comes from an older version of that language.

n. the linguistic descendant of a specific form or phoneme from a parent language in a daughter language.

“The English word 'father' is a reflex of an ancient Germanic word.”

“Linguists traced the vowel shift by comparing the modern reflexes of the Proto-Indo-European root across several Romance languages.”

Technical

n. an image or light that is reflected off a surface.

n. a reflection or an image produced by a reflection; specifically, light reflected from an illuminated surface onto one in shadow.

“The silver bowl showed a distorted reflex of the candles on the table.”

“The painter captured the subtle reflex of the sunset on the underside of the bridge, illuminating the dark water below.”

Literary

adj. happening automatically as a reaction to something.

adj. produced or performed involuntarily as a response to a stimulus.

“Blinking is a reflex action that protects your eyes from dust.”

“The athlete's reflex response to the starting pistol was so fast it appeared almost anticipatory to the spectators.”

adj. describing an angle that is larger than 180 degrees but smaller than 360 degrees.

adj. denoting an angle that is greater than 180 degrees but less than 360 degrees.

“You need to measure the reflex angle on the outside of the triangle.”

“To complete the calculation, the student had to subtract the interior angle from 360 to find the corresponding reflex angle.”

Technical