refractive index

1. 1.

   the ratio of the velocity of light in a vacuum to that in a medium

   Synonymsindex of refraction

   Broaderratio

Questions about refractive index

What does refractive index mean?

refractive index means "the ratio of the velocity of light in a vacuum to that in a medium".

What is another word for refractive index?

Close synonyms include index of refraction. 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 refractive index a common word?

refractive index is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.