Refringence

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    refractive power; refraction countable, uncountable

    "By far the most noticeable characteristic is the highly refringent nature of the poles of the cells. This refringence is noticed in a very large proportion of the cells of a culture examined at any stage of growth, and will be again referred to."

Example

More examples

"By far the most noticeable characteristic is the highly refringent nature of the poles of the cells. This refringence is noticed in a very large proportion of the cells of a culture examined at any stage of growth, and will be again referred to."

Etymology

From refringe + -ence, from Latin refringere. Refract and derivatives come from the past participle of the same Latin verb.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.