reflex

noun

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.”

   “He met Luis Suarez's cross at the far post, only for Chelsea keeper Petr Cech to show brilliant reflexes to deflect his header on to the bar. Carroll turned away to lead Liverpool's insistent protests that the ball had crossed the line but referee Phil Dowd and assistant referee Andrew Garratt waved play on, with even a succession of replays proving inconclusive.”

2. The descendant of an earlier language element, such as a word or phoneme, in a daughter language.
3. (rare)The ancestor word corresponding to a descendant.

   “The Middle Korean reflex for mey was mwoy 뫼”

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.”

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.”

   “Yon gray is not the morning’s eye, ’Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow.”

   “On the depths of death there swims The reflex of a human face.”

   “Lucy is sleeping soundly; the reflex of the dawn is high and far over the sea[.]”

adj

1. Bent, turned back or reflected.

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

2. Produced automatically by a stimulus.

   “It's easier to focus on the particular relationship or object (as in 'pornography', for example) than on the sexist (racist, ageist, etc.) attitudes that generate the almost reflex violence taught in our schools, churches, legal processes, families, mass entertainment, and advertising propaganda.”

3. Having greater than 180 degrees but less than 360 degrees.

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

   “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.”

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

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

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

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

verb

1. (transitive)To bend back or turn back over itself.
2. (obsolete, transitive)To reflect (light, sight, etc.).
3. (obsolete, transitive)To reflect or mirror (an object), to show the image of.
4. (obsolete, transitive)To cast (beams of light) on something.

   “The ſpring is hindered by your ſmoothering hoſt, For neither rain can fall vpon the earth, Nor Sun reflexe his vertuous beames thereon. The ground is mantled with ſuch multitudes.”

5. To respond to a stimulus.