Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
"MIRRORS" is a plural of: mirror. |
Date "MIRRORS" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1321. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Literature | Mirrors Alasnam's mirror. The "touchstone of virtue," showed if the lady beloved was chaste as well as beautiful. (Arabian Nights: Prince Zeyn Alasnam.) Cambuscan's mirror. Sent to Cambuscan' by the King of Araby and Ind; it warned of the approach of ill-fortune, and told if love was returned. (Chaucer: Canterbury Tales; The Squire's Tale.) Lao's mirror reflected the mind and its thoughts, as an ordinary mirror reflects the outward seeming. (Goldsmith: Citizen of the World, xlv.) Merlin's magic mirror, given by Merlin to King Ryence. It informed the king of treason, secret plots, and projected invasions. (Spenser: Faerie Queene, iii. 2.) Reynard's wonderful mirror. This mirror existed only in the brain of Master Fox; he told the queen-lion that whoever looked in it could see what was done a mile off. The wood of the frame was not subject to decay, being made of the same block as King Crampart's magic horse. (Reynard the Fox, ch. xii.) Vulcan's mirror showed the past, the present, and the future. Sir John Davies tells us that Cupid gave the mirror to Antinous, and Antinous gave it to Penelope who saw therein "the court of Queen Elizabeth." Source: Brewer's Dictionary. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
''Separate articles treat the newspapers called the Daily Mirror and the Sunday Mirror, the computing term mirror, and the Mirror Dinghy.
A mirror is a reflective surface that is smooth enough to be able to form an image. The best known example is the plane mirror that most people have at home. In it, a parallel beam of light changes its direction as a whole, whilst still remaining parallel; the images formed by a plane mirror are virtual images, of the same size as the original object (see mirror image). There are also parabolic concave mirrors, where a parallel beam of light becomes a convergent beam, whose rays intersect in the focus of the mirror. Finally, there are convex mirrors, where a parallel beam becomes divergent, with the apparent intersection occurring behind the mirror. Note that spherical concave and convex mirrors do not have a single focal point, as often erroneously described in high school physics text books.
Early mirrors consisted of a plate or sheet of polished metal, often silver when the reflected image was for viewing (such as for personal grooming) but also of other metals when only the intensity of reflected light was important.
Modern mirrors usually consist of a thin layer of aluminium (or sometimes other metals) deposited on a sheet of glass. They are usually back silvered, where the reflecting surface is viewed through the glass sheet; this makes the mirror durable, but lowers the image quality of the mirror due to extraneous reflections from the front surface of the glass. This type of mirror reflects about 80% of the incident light. Front silvered mirrors, where the reflecting surface is placed on the front surface of the glass, have a better image quality but are easily scratched and damaged. They reflect 90% to 95% of the incident light. Astronomical mirrors are of the latter type, and they have to be resurfaced every now and then to keep their quality.
For scientific optical work, dielectric mirrors are often used. These are glass (or sometimes other material) substrates on which one or more layers of dielectric material are deposited, to form an optical coating. By careful choice of the type and thickness of the dielectric layers, the range of wavelengths and amount of light reflected from the mirror can be specified. The best mirrors of this type can reflect >99.999% of the light (in a narrow range of wavelengths) which is incident on the mirror.
A beam of light reflects off of a mirror at an angle of reflection that is equal to its angle of incidence. That is, if the beam of light is shining on a mirror's surface at a 30° angle from vertical, then it reflects from the point of incidence at a 30° angle from vertical in the opposite direction.
Mirrors do not actually reverse left and right.
Rear-view mirrors are applied in and on vehicles.
There exist rear view sunglasses, of which the left end of the left glass and the right end of the right glass work as mirrors.
A one-way mirror reflects about half of the light and lets the other half pass. It is a sheet of glass coated so thinly with metal molecules that these cover half of the surface. It is applied between a dark room and a brightly lit room. From the dark side it looks like a transparent window and from the brightly lit side like a mirror. It may be used to observe criminal suspects, customers (to watch out for theft), etc. The same type of mirror, when used in an optical instrument, is called a half-silvered mirror. Its purpose is to split a beam of light so that half passes straight through, while the other half is reflected.
A decorative reflecting sphere of thin metal-coated glass, working as a reducing wide-angle mirror, is sold in the period before Christmas, to be used as Christmas tree decoration called a bauble.
See also: periscope.
External link:
- mirror.sytes.org: only images are truly mirrored as in real life; text are simply in reversed letter order.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Mirror."
Synonym: MIRRORSSynonym: Looking glasses. (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Prediction | Coscinomancy; by a suspended ring, Dactyliomancy; by dots made at random on paper, Geomancy; by precious stones, Lithomancy; by pebbles, Pessomancy; by pebbles drawn from a heap, Psephomancy; by mirrors, Catoptromancy; by writings in ashes, Tephramancy; by dreams, Oneiromancy; by the hand, Palmistry, Chiromancy; by nails reflecting the sun's rays, Onychomancy; by finger rings, Dactylomancy; by numbers, Arithmancy; by drawing lots, Sortilege; by passages in books, Stichomancy; by the letters forming the name of the person, Onomancy, Nomancy; by the features, Anthroposcopy; by the mode of laughing, Geloscopy; by ventriloquism, Gastromancy; by walking in a circle, Gyromancy; by dropping melted wax into water, Ceromancy; by currents, Bletonism; by the color and peculiarities of wine, Oenomancy. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | We all need mirrors to remind ourselves who we are. I'm no different (Memento; writing credit: Bo Goldman; Lawrence Hauben) If crime showed on a man's face, there wouldn't be any mirrors. (We're No Angels; writing credit: Albert Husson; Ranald MacDougall) I installed two-way mirrors in his pad in Brentwood, and he come to the door in a dress (Repo Man; writing credit: Alex Cox) Well, you might not be Bruce Lee, but then again he did it all with mirrors anyway (The Hitter; writing credit: Ben Harris; Christopher Leitch) I finally get invited to a nice place with no mirrors and lots of curtains (Angel; writing credit: Letícia Dornelles) | |
Lyrics | The girls comb their hair in rearview mirrors ("Born to Run"; performing artist: Bruce Springsteen) Mirrors on the ceiling, (Hotel California; performing artist: EAGLES) I can see your face in the mirrors of my mind (Valotte; performing artist: Julian Lennon) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Art of Mirrors (1973) Corridor of Mirrors (1948) Mirrors (1934) The House of Mirrors (1916) Hall of Mirrors (2000) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
References |
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Books |
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Theater & Movies | |||
Music |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Prismatic mirrors for reflecting laser light beam Transcontinental traverse party of Woodrow Johnson. Credit: Coast & Geodetic Survey Historical Image Collection. |  | Front elevation. Photograph by John P. O'Neill, March 3, 1937. (Reproduction Number: HABS, ARIZ,10-TUCSO.V,3-5) The Mission of San Xavier del Bac is generally considered one of the most beautiful of the Spanish missions in the United States. In 1797 the church was constructed of adobe on a site that had been a mission since the beginning of the 1700s. It is shown here following restoration work completed in the early 1900's. The history of the mission mirrors the ebb and flow of the Spanish presence in the southwest. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Mouth Mirrors. Credit: National Library of Medicine. |  | Physical Therapy Department, Deshon General Hospital, Butler, Pennsylvania : Gait training with the use of mirrors and marked foot-prints and parallel lines painted in the floor. Credit: National Library of Medicine. |
 | Diagram of interferometer and four mirrors mounted on stone floating in mercury, which disproved existence of luminiferous ether and its role in the transmission of eletromagnetic waves; with surrounding text. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Unidentified African American man posed, full-length, seated, facing left, in front of mirrors, which reflect four mirror images of him. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Row of students practising speech holding mirrors. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | I. Miller Shoe Store, business at 218 N. Charles St., Baltimore, Maryland. View to mirrors. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
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| "Endless Screens" by Tim Spence Commentary: "Television wall, utilising mirrors at The Natural History Museum in London, UK." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. |
| Author | Quotation |
Author Unknown | Maturity is that time when the mirrors in our mind turn to windows and instead of seeing the reflection of ourselves we see others. |
Gibbon | Books are those faithful mirrors that reflect to our mind the minds of sages and heroes. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Title | Author | Quote |
After Three Days | Carroll, Lewis | Thus, as a sunless deep Mirrors the shining heights that crown the bay, So did my soul create anew in sleep The picture seen by day. |
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency | Douglas Adams | Perhaps, he thought anxiously to himself, perhaps it was something to do with having heated wing mirrors. Didn’t this car have heated wing mirrors |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | With the aid of mouth mirrors, inspect the right and left lateral margins of the tongue. (references) | |
The occurrence of these diseases mirrors the geographic distributions and seasonal activities of the tick vectors. (references) | ||
The distribution of the principal vectors of B. burgdorferi in the United States mirrors the areas of high reported incidence of Lyme disease and identifies areas of potential disease emergence. (references) | ||
Children | Philippines | The rules permit nonlawyers to pose questions, allow the child to have companions of her own choosing present, provide for the exclusion of persons not having a direct interest in the case, and permit use of videotaped testimony and one-way mirrors. (references) |
Economic History | Canada | The Canadian market mirrors the US market in many respects. (references) |
Sweden | Steering wheels, rims, mirrors and decorations for the exterior of the car also sell well. (references) | |
Human Rights | Poland | The prosecutorial system mirrors the court structure with national, provincial, appellate, and regional offices. (references) |
Political Economy | Armenia | The regional (district) governmental structure of Armenia closely mirrors the national structure. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "MIRRORS" is generally used as a noun (plural) -- approximately 92.95% of the time. "MIRRORS" is used about 552 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (plural) | 92.95% | 513 | 11,826 |
| Lexical Verb (-s form) | 6.87% | 38 | 55,818 |
| Noun (proper) | 0.18% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 552 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "MIRRORS": Conjugate mirrors ♦ smoke and mirrors. Additional references. | |
| Hypenated Usage | |
Ending with "MIRRORS": hall-of-mirrors, hand-mirrors, wing-mirrors. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
american convex crosskeysantiques.com english french german mirror mirrors.htm regency | 5 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "MIRRORS"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
German | Spiegel (escutcheon, glass, lapel, level, looking-glass, mirror, panel, reflector, speculum, tab, type area). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 合わせ鏡 (opposite mirrors). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | あわせかがみ (opposite mirrors). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | irrorsmay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | espelhos. (various references) | |
Swedish | återspeglingar. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Misspellings | |
"MIRRORS" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Marros, miraris, miroirs, Mirro, mirrour, mirrours, Miruts, myrrour. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "MIRRORS" (pronounced mi"rerz) |
| 4 | -i" r er z | hearers. |
| 3 | -r er z | admirers, bearers, errors, explorers, horrors, insurers, jurors, preparers, reinsurers, scorers, seafarers, terrors, wearers. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "i-m-o-r-r-r-s" | |
-1 letter: mirror, morris. | |
-2 letters: orris. | |
-3 letters: mirs, miso, mors, rims, roms, sori. | |
-4 letters: ism, mir, mis, mor, mos, oms, ors, rim, rom, sim, sir, som, sri. | |
-5 letters: is, mi, mo, om, or, os, si, so. | |
| Words containing the letters "i-m-o-r-r-r-s" | |
+2 letters: terrorism. | |
+3 letters: terrorisms. | |
+5 letters: arteriograms, brainstormer, ecoterrorism, embroiderers, microbrewers, microreaders, microsurgery, reembroiders, respirometer, respirometry. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Photo Album 8. Images: Digital Art | 9. Quotations: Familiar 10. Quotations: Fiction 11. Quotations: Non-fiction 12. Usage Frequency | 13. Expressions 14. Expressions: Internet 15. Translations: Modern 16. Derivations | 17. Rhymes 18. Anagrams 19. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
