optogram

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noun

An image of external objects fixed on the retina by the photochemical action of light on rhodopsin.

Scrabble 13

Meanings

nounoptogram (plural optograms)

plural optograms

  1. medicineAn image of external objects fixed on the retina by the photochemical action of light on rhodopsin.

    The bleaching of visual purple is limited to the area exposed to light, so that an optogram or image of the luminous object, such as a window, can be obtained.

    1924, John Herbert Parsons, An Introduction to the Study of Colour Vision, page 16
    2 more examples

    The study of optograms caught the imagination of the public as well as the scientific community. Some scientifically minded sleuths hoped that the optograms of murder victims might betray their killers!

    2001, Stanley Finger, Origins of Neuroscience: A History of Explorations Into Brain Function, page 82

    What Dantin, Ginory, and Bernardet do not know—that is, the true facts about the killer's identity and the source of Dantin's image—will come not from the material evidence of the optogram, but from the vagaries of chance, as Bernardet's flânerie allows him to stumble on both Dantin's portrait and the true killer himself.

    2006, Andrea Goulet, Optiques: The Science of the Eye and the Birth of Modern French Fiction, page 183

Origin

Translations

French optogramme
  • optogrammeimage of external objects fixed on the retina by the photochemical action of light on the visual purple
Italian optogramma
  • optogrammaimage of external objects fixed on the retina by the photochemical action of light on the visual purple

Rhymes & wordplay

Anagrams

Cite this entry
APA

optogram. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/optogram

MLA

“optogram.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/optogram. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “optogram,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/optogram.

Source: optogram on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.