reflex

1. 1.

   without volition or conscious control

   “the automatic shrinking of the pupils of the eye in strong light”

   “a reflex knee jerk”

   “sneezing is reflexive”

   Synonymsautomaticreflexive

   Similarinvoluntary

   physiology

Other forms of reflex

plural

reflexes·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about reflex

What does reflex mean?

reflex means "an automatic instinctive unlearned reaction to a stimulus". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in reflex?

reflex has 2 syllables: re-flex. The stress falls on "re". In IPA it is /ˈɹiflɛks/.

What is another word for reflex?

Close synonyms include reflex response, reflex action, instinctive reflex, innate reflex, inborn reflex. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is reflex a common word?

reflex is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.