refractile

comparative more refractile · superlative most refractile

1. Able to refract, refractive

   The number of refractile, ovoid spores was determined by phase-contrast microscopy using a hemocytometer.

   1997 July 11, Bin Wang, Adam Kuspa, “Dictyostelium Development in the Absence of cAMP”, in Science, volume 277, number 5323, →DOI, pages 251–254

   3 more examples

   As the colony increases, the granular character becomes more marked, until it seems to be made up of highly refractile granules, like a mass of particles of glass.

   1884, Various, Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884

   Stained bacilli, when examined with the polarising microscope, often show a doubly refractile cell wall (e. g., B. tuberculosis and B. anthracis).

   1913, John William Henry Eyre, The Elements of Bacteriological Technique

   He watched daily through the microscope for characteristic signs of viral infection, and eventually saw what he later described as a “peculiar rounding of scattered cells with refractile bodies in the cytoplasm and nucleus.”

   2008 August 27, H. Roger Segelken, “Thomas H. Weller, Whose Work on Tissue Led to Nobel Prize, Is Dead at 93”, in New York Times