Aberration

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Aberration \Ab`er*ra"tion\, n. [L. aberratio: cf. F. aberration.
     See {Aberrate}.]
     1. The act of wandering; deviation, especially from truth or
        moral rectitude, from the natural state, or from a type.
        "The aberration of youth." --Hall. "Aberrations from
        theory." --Burke.


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     2. A partial alienation of reason. "Occasional aberrations of
        intellect." --Lingard.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              Whims, which at first are the aberrations of a
              single brain, pass with heat into epidemic form.
                                                    --I. Taylor.
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     3. (Astron.) A small periodical change of position in the
        stars and other heavenly bodies, due to the combined
        effect of the motion of light and the motion of the
        observer; called {annual aberration}, when the observer's
        motion is that of the earth in its orbit, and daily or
        {diurnal aberration}, when of the earth on its axis;
        amounting when greatest, in the former case, to 20.4'',
        and in the latter, to 0.3''. {Planetary aberration} is
        that due to the motion of light and the motion of the
        planet relative to the earth.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     4. (Opt.) The convergence to different foci, by a lens or
        mirror, of rays of light emanating from one and the same
        point, or the deviation of such rays from a single focus;
        called {spherical aberration}, when due to the spherical
        form of the lens or mirror, such form giving different
        foci for central and marginal rays; and {chromatic
        aberration}, when due to different refrangibilities of the
        colored rays of the spectrum, those of each color having a
        distinct focus.
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     5. (Physiol.) The passage of blood or other fluid into parts
        not appropriate for it.
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     6. (Law) The producing of an unintended effect by the
        glancing of an instrument, as when a shot intended for A
        glances and strikes B.
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     Syn: Insanity; lunacy; madness; derangement; alienation;
          mania; dementia; hallucination; illusion; delusion. See
          {Insanity}.
          [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  aberration
       n 1: a state or condition markedly different from the norm [syn:
            {aberrance}, {aberrancy}, {deviance}]
       2: a disorder in one's mental state
       3: an optical phenomenon resulting from the failure of a lens
          or mirror to produce a good image [syn: {distortion}, {optical
          aberration}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  224 Moby Thesaurus words for "aberration":
     aberrance, aberrancy, abet, abnormality, abnormity, alienation,
     amorphism, anomalism, anomalousness, anomaly, bend, bias,
     brain damage, brainsickness, branching off, centrifugence,
     circuitousness, clouded mind, conceit, corner, crackpotism, crank,
     crankiness, crankism, craziness, crook, crosswiseness, crotchet,
     crotchetiness, curiosity, curve, daftness, decentralization,
     declination, defectiveness, deflection, deflexure, delusion,
     dementedness, dementia, departure, deployment, derangement, detour,
     deviance, deviancy, deviation, deviousness, diagonality,
     difference, differentness, digression, discursion, disorientation,
     distortion, distraction, divagation, divarication, divergence,
     divergency, diversion, division, dogleg, dottiness, double, drift,
     drifting, eccentricity, errancy, errantry, erraticism, erraticness,
     erroneousness, error, excursion, excursus, exorbitation,
     fallaciousness, fallacy, falseness, falsity, fanning, fanning out,
     fault, faultiness, flaw, flawedness, folie, foment, freakiness,
     freakishness, furor, hairpin, hamartia, heresy, heterodoxy,
     heteromorphism, idiocrasy, idiosyncrasy, illusion, indirection,
     indirectness, inferiority, insaneness, insanity, instigate,
     irrationality, irregularity, kink, loss of mind, loss of reason,
     lunacy, madness, maggot, mania, mannerism, mental deficiency,
     mental derangement, mental disease, mental disorder,
     mental disturbance, mental illness, mental instability,
     mental sickness, mind overthrown, mindsickness, misapplication,
     misconstruction, misdoing, misfeasance, misinterpretation,
     misjudgment, mistake, monstrosity, nonconformity, obliqueness,
     obliquity, oddity, oddness, peccancy, peculiarity, pererration,
     perversion, pixilation, possession, prodigy, provoke, psychopathy,
     queerness, quip, quirk, quirkiness, rabidness, raise, rambling,
     rarity, reasonlessness, self-contradiction, senselessness,
     separation, set, set on, shattered mind, sheer, shift, shifting,
     shifting course, shifting path, sick mind, sickness, sin,
     sinfulness, singularity, skew, skewness, slant, slip, splaying,
     spread, spreading, spreading out, squint, stir up, strangeness,
     straying, subnormality, superiority, sweep, swerve, swerving,
     swinging, tack, teratism, transverseness, trick, turn, turning,
     twist, unbalance, unbalanced mind, unconventionality, unnaturalism,
     unnaturalness, unorthodoxy, unsaneness, unsound mind, unsoundness,
     unsoundness of mind, untrueness, untruth, untruthfulness, vagary,
     variation, veer, wandering, warp, whim, whimsicality, whimsy,
     witlessness, wrong, wrongness, yaw, zigzag