reflect ent (reflektent)

[L. reflecten ( t- ) s, ppr. of reflect ere, reflect: see reflect.] 1. Bending or flying back; reflected. The ray descendent, and the ray reflect ent . Sir K. Digby , Nature of Man's Soul. ( Latham . ) 2. Capable of reflecting. When light pa es through such bodies, it finds at the very entrance of them such resistences, where it pa es, as serve it for a reflecting body, and yet such a reflect ent body as hinders not the pa age through, but only from being a straight line with the line incident. And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver. 2. An improver in purity and elegance. As they have been the great refiners of our language, so it hath been my chief ambition to imitate them. Swift. 3. An inventor of superfluous subtleties; one who is overnice in discrimination, or in argument, reasoning, philosophy, etc. Whether (as some phantastic all refyners of phylosophy will needes perswade vs) hell is nothing but error, and that none but fooles and idiots and mechanic all men, that haue no learning, shall be damnd. Nashe , Pierce Penile e, p. 66. No men see le of the truth of things than these great refiners upon incidents, who are so wonderfully subtle and over wise in their conceptions. Add is on. 4t. One who indulges in exce ive compliment; one who is over-civil; a flatterer. The worst was, our guilded refiners with their golden promises made all men their slaues in hope of recompences. Quoted in Capt . John Smith's Works, I. 169. For these people have fallen into a needle and endle way of multiplying ceremonies, which have been extremely troublesome to those who practise them, and insupportable to every body else; insomuch that wise men are often more uneasy at the over civility of these refiners than they could po ibly be in the conversation of peasants or mechanics. Swift , Good Manners. 5. An apparatus for refining; specifically, in England, a gas-purifier. refinery (re-fi'ner-i), n.; pl. refineries (-iz). [