aperture
noun
Simple meaning
A small or narrow opening, gap, slit.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
apercherSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈæpɚtʃɚ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A small or narrow opening, gap, slit, or hole.
optics
A hole which restricts the diameter of the lightpath through one plane in an optical system.
astronomyphotography
The diameter of such a hole which restricts the width of the lightpath through the whole system. For a telescope, this is the diameter of the objective lens.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Varies by meaning
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A small or narrow opening, gap, slit, or hole.
Used this way, aperture is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It stays understated rather than dramatic. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Mild
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use aperture
- “An aperture in a wall.”noun
- “This telescope has a 100cm aperture.”noun
- “If the generatrix makes an angle θ to the axis, then the aperture is 2θ.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.