reflexes

Noun

reflex (plural reflexes)

1. An automatic response to a simple stimulus which does not require mental processing.
   • 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.1970, Stanisław Lem, trans. Joanna Kilmartin and Steve Cox, Solaris
2. The descendant of an earlier language element, such as a word or phoneme, in a daughter language.

   Antonyms:

   etymon

3. (rare) The ancestor word corresponding to a descendant.
   • The Middle Korean reflex for mey was mwoy 뫼2011, Ki-Moon Lee, S. Robert Ramsey, A history of the Korean language
4. The descendant of anything from an earlier time, such as a cultural myth.
   • 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.1898, Christian Brinton, The Century
5. A reflection or an image produced by a reflection; the light reflected from an illuminated surface to one in shade.
   • A reflex camera uses a mirror to reflect the image onto a ground-glass viewfinder.

See all 14 meanings of reflex