different between spasm vs reflex

English

Etymology

From Middle English spasme, from Old French spasme, from Latin spasmus, from Ancient Greek ??????? (spasmós, “spasm, convulsion”), from ???? (spá?, “to draw out, pull out”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?spæz.?m/

Noun

spasm (plural spasms)

1. A sudden, involuntary contraction of a muscle, a group of muscles, or a hollow organ.
2. A violent, excruciating seizure of pain.
3. A sudden and temporary burst of energy, activity, or emotion.

Related terms

• spastic

Translations

Verb

spasm (third-person singular simple present spasms, present participle spasming, simple past and past participle spasmed)

1. To produce and undergo a spasm.

Translations

Anagrams

• samps, spams

Romanian

Etymology

From French spasme.

Noun

spasm n (plural spasme)

1. spasm

Declension

Swedish

Etymology

From Old French spasme, from Latin spasmus, from Ancient Greek ??????? (spasmós).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?spasm/, [?spas?m]

Noun

spasm c

1. spasm

Declension

References

• spasm in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)

English

Etymology

From Late Latin reflexus, past participle of reflectere (“to bend back”). Photography sense is from noun sense meaning “reflection”.

Pronunciation

• (noun, adjective) IPA^(key): /??i?fl?ks/
• (verb) IPA^(key): /???fl?ks/

Noun

reflex (plural reflexes)

1. An automatic response to a simple stimulus which does not require mental processing.
   • 1970, Stanis?aw Lem, trans. Joanna Kilmartin and Steve Cox, Solaris:

     For a while, I shall have to make a conscious effort to smile, nod, stand and perform the thousands of little gestures which constitute life on Earth, and then those gestures will become reflexes again.

1. (linguistics) The descendant of an earlier language element, such as a word or phoneme, in a daughter language.

   Synonym: derivative

   Antonym: etymon

   Coordinate term: cognate

2. The descendant of anything from an earlier time, such as a cultural myth.
   • 1898, Christian Brinton, in The Century

     The superstition of the loup-garou, or werewolf, belongs to the folklore of most modern nations, and has its reflex in the story of "Little Red Riding-hood" and others.

3. (chiefly photography) Reflection or an image produced by reflection. The light reflected from an illuminated surface to one in shade.

Translations

Adjective

reflex (comparative more reflex, superlative most reflex)

1. Bent, turned back or reflected.
   • 1677, Matthew Hale, The Primitive Origination of Mankind, Considered and Examined According to the Light of Nature

     the reflex act of the soul, or the turning of the intellectual eye inward upon its own actions

2. Produced automatically by a stimulus.
3. (geometry, of an angle) Having greater than 180 degrees but less than 360 degrees.
   • 1878, James Maurice Wilson, Elementary Geometry, MacMillan, page 10:

     A polygon is said to be convex when no one of its angles is reflex.

   • 1895, David Eugen Smith and Wooster Woodruff Bernan, New Plane and Solid Geometry, page 7:

     An angle less than a right angle is said to be acute; one greater than a right angle but less than a straight angle is said to be obtuse; one greater than a straight angle but less than a perigon is said to be reflex or convex.

   • 1958, Howard Fehr, “On Teaching Dihedral Angle and Steradian” in The Mathematics Teacher, v 51, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, page 275:

     If the reflex region is the interior of the angle, the dihedral angle is reflex.

   • 1991, B. Falcidieno et al, “Configurable Representations in Feature-based Modelling” in Eurographics '91: Proceedings, North-Holland, page 145:

     A reflex edge of a polyhedron is an edge where the inner dihedral angle subtended by two incident faces is greater than 180°.

   • 2001, Esther M. Arkin et al, “On the Reflexivity of Point Sets”, in Algorithms and data structures: 7th International Workshop, WADS 2001: Proceedings, Springer, page 195:

     We say that an angle is convex if it is not reflex.

   • 2004, Ana Paula Tomás and António Leslie Bajuelos, “Quadratic-Time Linear-Space Algorithms Generating Orthogonal Polygons with a Given Number of Vertices”, in Computational Science and Its Applications – ICCSA 2004 Proceedings, part 3, Springer, page 117:

     P denotes a polygon and r the number of reflex vertices.

4. (painting) Illuminated by light reflected from another part of the same picture.

Synonyms

• (of an angle): re-entrant

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

reflex (third-person singular simple present reflexes, present participle reflexing, simple past and past participle reflexed)

1. (transitive) To bend, turn back or reflect.
2. To respond to a stimulus.

Anagrams

• Flexer

Catalan

Etymology

From Latin reflexus, first attested 1803.

Adjective

reflex (feminine reflexa, masculine plural reflexos, feminine plural reflexes)

1. reflected

   Synonym: reflectit

2. (psychology) reflex

3. (botany) reflexed
4. (linguistics) reflexive

   Synonym: reflexiu

Noun

reflex m (plural reflexos)

1. reflection (something that is reflected)

   Synonym: reflexió

2. reflex (an automatic response to a simple stimulus)

Further reading

• “reflex” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
• “reflex” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “reflex” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

References

Czech

Noun

reflex m

1. reflex

Related terms

• See flexe

Further reading

• reflex in P?íru?ní slovník jazyka ?eského, 1935–1957
• reflex in Slovník spisovného jazyka ?eského, 1960–1971, 1989

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from French réflexe, from Latin reflexus.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /re??fl?ks/, /r??fl?ks/
• Hyphenation: re?flex
• Rhymes: -?ks

Noun

reflex m (plural reflexen, diminutive reflexjes n)

1. reflex (automatic response by an organism)

   Synonym: reflexus

Derived terms

• reflexachtig
• reflexmatig

Descendants

• ? Indonesian: refleks

Hungarian

Etymology

From German Reflex, from French réflexe.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?r?fl?ks]
• Hyphenation: ref?lex
• Rhymes: -?ks

Noun

reflex (plural reflexek)

1. reflex (an automatic response to a simple stimulus which does not require mental processing)
2. (photography) reflection

   Synonyms: visszfény, tükröz?dés

Declension

Derived terms

References

Further reading

• reflex in Bárczi, Géza and László Országh: A magyar nyelv értelmez? szótára (’The Explanatory Dictionary of the Hungarian Language’). Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1959–1962. Fifth ed., 1992: ?ISBN

Romanian

Etymology

From French réflexe, from Latin Reflex.

Adjective

reflex m or n (feminine singular reflex?, masculine plural reflec?i, feminine and neuter plural reflexe)

1. reflex

Declension

Swedish

Etymology

From French réflexe, first attested 1811.

Noun

reflex c

1. a reflex, a (quick and spontaneous) reaction
2. a reflector (tag, strip or band; carried by pedestrians and bicyclists to be visible from automobiles)

Declension

References