optic

alternative optick · alternative optique

1. not comparablerelationalOf, or relating to the eye or to vision.

   The moon, whose orb / Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views.

   1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC

2. not comparablerelationalengineeringOf, or relating to optics or optical instruments.

plural optics · alternative optick · alternative optique

1. archaichumorousAn eye.

   The difference is as great between / The optics seeing, as the object seen.

   1734, Alexander Pope, Of the Knowledge and Characters of Men: An Epistle to the Right Honourable Richard Lord Viscount Cobham

   2 more examples

   how they, / Who saw those figures on the margin kiss all, / Could turn their optics to the text and pray, / Is more than I know[…]

   1819, Lord Byron, “Canto 1”, in Don Juan, section 46

   Elbows almost touching they leaned at ease, idly reading the almost obliterated lines engraved there. ¶ "I never understood it," she observed, lightly scornful. "What occult meaning has a sun-dial for the spooney? I'm sure I don't want to read riddles in a strange gentleman's optics."

   1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter 8, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC

2. engineeringA lens or other part of an optical instrument that interacts with light.

   The single-imaging optic of the mammalian eye offers some distinct visual advantages. Such lenses can take in photons from a wide range of angles, increasing light sensitivity. They also have high spatial resolution, resolving incoming images in minute detail.

   2013, Fenella Saunders, “Tiny Lenses See the Big Picture”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 4, →DOI, archived from the original on 23 Mar 2021, page 270

3. trademark in UKA measuring device with a small window, attached to an upside-down bottle, used to dispense alcoholic drinks in a bar.

   They were neatly lined up on three shelves between the optics of martini, vodka, whisky and gin.

   2014, M. P. Wright, Heartman

   1 more example

   They pulled up two bar stools and looked around the room as the barman relieved the whisky optic of its contents.

   2018, Denise Mina, Exile