reflector
noun
Simple meaning
Something which reflects heat, light or sound.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
rihflehkterSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ɹɪfˈlɛktɚ
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
Something which reflects heat, light or sound, especially something having a reflecting surface.
A small, often red, reflecting disk on the rear of a vehicle or bicycle that reflects the headlights of other vehicles.
Optical telescope consisting of a large concave mirror that produces an image that is magnified by the eyepiece
“Isaac Newton invented the reflecting telescope in 1668.”
One who reflects on something; one who thinks or considers at length.
A reflecting telescope.
Something that is reflective (indicative) of something else.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Formality
- Technical
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Something which reflects heat, light or sound, especially something having a reflecting surface.
Used this way, reflector is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Nearby words
- reflecting telescope , rarer, so it draws attention
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
The fraction of radiant energy that is reflected from a surface.
Capable of physically reflecting light or sound.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A reflecting telescope with the mirror slightly tilted to throw the image to the side where it can be viewed.
A concave reflector used to produce a parallel beam when the source is placed at its focus or to focus an incoming parallel beam.
A concave reflector used to produce a parallel beam when the source is placed at its focus or to focus an incoming parallel beam.
Astronomical telescope that picks up electromagnetic radiations in the radio-frequency range from extraterrestrial sources.
Reflecting telescope in which the image is viewed through an eyepiece perpendicular to main axis.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
- mirrornoun
- reflectiveadjective
- lensnoun
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: something which reflects heat or light or sound
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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.