reflect

UK/ɹɪˈflɛkt/US/ɹɪˈflɛkt/

verbB1+3 meanings Common in everyday speech and writing · #4,082 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: reflected, reflects, reflecting

Reflect is what a surface does when it throws light or an image back at you. The lake reflects the mountains, the wing mirror reflects the headlights behind you, and you catch yourself reflected in a shop window and straighten your collar.

The same verb covers thinking. To reflect on something is to turn it over slowly in your mind, which is what people do on long walks and quiet evenings; it takes ON or UPON, never ABOUT. Then there is the showing sense: the price reflects the quality, the low turnout reflects how little anyone trusts the council. A whole family sits around it — a reflection in the glass, a reflection on your childhood, a reflective surface, a reflective mood. Watch the phrase reflect well or badly ON someone: a rude email reflects badly on the whole company, meaning it makes them look bad.

Definitions of reflect

1verbreflectTo throw back light, heat, sound or an image.B1+~9%
“The white walls reflect the afternoon light into every corner of the room.”
synonyms: mirror, throw back
2verbponderTo think carefully and at length about something.B2~2%
“He sat on the step and reflected on how the year had gone.”
synonyms: ponder, contemplate, muse
3verbshowTo show or be a sign of something.B2~89%
“These figures reflect the price rise that came in January.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 21 sentences found in the wild and placed 21 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.

Where it comes from

Reflect came from Old French reflect, 'to bend back, turn back', and before that Latin reflectō. Pull the Latin apart and you get re-, 'again', plus flectō, 'to bend, to curve'. Light bending back off a mirror and a mind bending back over yesterday are, in the word's own terms, the same movement. Reflex is its close relative.

Latin
reflectō — to reflect
Old French
reflect — to bend back, turn back
English, today
reflect

Built from

re- · Latin — again
flectō · Latin — to bend, to curve

From Old French reflect (“to bend back, turn back”), from Latin reflectō (“to reflect”), from re- (“again”) + flectō (“to bend, to curve”). Compare English reflex.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove, Ways of Looking, Light & Shadow, Shapes & Lines, Thinking & Memory

First appears in chapter 5 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

reflect in the wild

A mirror, also known as a looking glass, is an object that reflects an image.
Mirror
When the surface is not flat, a mirror may behave like a reflecting lens.
Mirror
The name "Entrez" (a greeting meaning "Come in" in French) was chosen to reflect the spirit of welcoming the public to search the content available from the NLM.
Entrez
As a result, colonial films frequently do not attempt to reflect the social realities of life in colonized countries.
Colonial cinema
Many of the state's buildings reflect Texas' Spanish and Mexican roots; in addition, there is considerable influence from mostly the American South as well as the Southwest.
Architecture of Texas

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the flectō family

reflect flexible

reflect — used about once every 800 pages · #4,082 · point at the bar for the others

reflection

Definitions of reflect

1verbreflectTo throw back light, heat, sound or an image.B1+~9%

“The white walls reflect the afternoon light into every corner of the room.”

synonyms: mirror, throw back

2verbponderTo think carefully and at length about something.B2~2%

“He sat on the step and reflected on how the year had gone.”

synonyms: ponder, contemplate, muse

3verbshowTo show or be a sign of something.B2~89%

“These figures reflect the price rise that came in January.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 21 sentences found in the wild and placed 21 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.