Word.ws English Dictionary

Mach band

Mach band noun: any of a series of bands of slightly different shades of grey that make up an optical illusion where the contrast between the bands appears to be exaggerated as soon as they contact one another.

mach band: any of a series of bands of slightly different shades of grey that make up an optical illusion...
Image: DancingPhilosopher, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

Mach band (plural Mach bands)

  1. Any of a series of bands of slightly different shades of grey that make up an optical illusion where the contrast between the bands appears to be exaggerated as soon as they contact one another.

Forms of Mach band

pluralMach bands

Origin of Mach band

Named after the physicist Ernst Mach.

Questions about Mach band

What does Mach band mean?
Mach band means any of a series of bands of slightly different shades of grey that make up an optical illusion where the contrast between the bands appears to be exaggerated as soon as they contact one another.
What part of speech is Mach band?
Mach band is a noun.
What is the plural of Mach band?
The plural of Mach band is Mach bands.

Words near Mach band in the dictionary

  1. MacGyverisms
  2. MacGyvers
  3. Mach
  4. Mach angle
  5. Mach angles
  6. Mach band
  7. Mach bands
  8. mach bhaja
  9. Mach cone
  10. Mach diamond
  11. Mach diamonds

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Mach band (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “Mach band.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mach_band. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.