Word.ws English Dictionary

refringence

refringence noun: refractive power; refraction.

Noun

refringence (countable and uncountable, plural refringences)

  1. refractive power; refraction
    • 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.1891 June, Charles Slater, “Memoirs: On a Red Pigment-forming Organism, B. corallinus (?)”, in The Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science (new series), volume 32, page 409

Forms of refringence

pluralrefringences

Origin of refringence

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

Words formed from refringence

Questions about refringence

What does refringence mean?
Refringence means refractive power; refraction.
What part of speech is refringence?
Refringence is a noun.
What is the plural of refringence?
The plural of refringence is refringences.

Words near refringence in the dictionary

  1. refrightening
  2. refrightens
  3. refrigs.
  4. refringe
  5. refringed
  6. refringence
  7. refringences
  8. refringencies
  9. refringency
  10. refringent
  11. refringes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: refringence (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: “refringence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/refringence. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.