meniscus
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English[edit]
Notional section through Meniscus lens, showing it to be concavo-convex, with a positive focus because it is thicker in the middle than the edge
Etymology[edit]
From Ancient Greek μηνίσκος (mēnískos, “crescent”), from μήνη (mḗnē, “moon”)
Pronunciation[edit]
Noun[edit]
meniscus (plural meniscuses or menisci)
- A crescent moon, or an object shaped like it. [from 17th c.]
- 1959, Anthony Burgess, Beds in the East (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 554:
- And from Crabbe's own forehead sweat dripped or gathered into a kind of meniscus to be scooped off.
- 1972, Vladimir Nabokov, Transparent Things, McGraw-Hill 1972, p. 19:
- He opened wide both casements; they gave on a parking place four floors below; the thin meniscus overhead was too wan to illumine the roofs of the houses descending toward the invisible lake [...].
- (optics) A lens which is convex on one side and concave on the other, being crescent-shaped in cross-section. [from 17th c.]
- The curved surface of liquids in tubes, whether concave or convex, caused by the surface tension of the liquid. [from 19th c.]
- (anatomy) Either of two parts of the human knee that provide structural integrity to the knee when it undergoes tension and torsion. [from 19th c.]
Translations[edit]
the curved surface of liquids
either of two parts of the human knee