birefringence
/baɪɹɪˈfɹɪnd͡ʒəns/noun
birefringence is a noun meaning “The splitting of a ray of light into two parallel rays of perpendicular polarization by passage through an optically anisotropic medium; the property…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled B-I-R-E-F-R-I-N-G-E-N-C-E, and it appears about once in every 13 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of birefringence is birefringences.
What does birefringence mean?
noun
- 1
The splitting of a ray of light into two parallel rays of perpendicular polarization by passage through an optically anisotropic medium; the property of a material that light passing through it is so split.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce birefringence?
- /baɪɹɪˈfɹɪnd͡ʒəns/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Neøn-birefringence.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of birefringence
- birefringences plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is birefringence?
Birefringence appears about once in every 13 million words in written English, the 106,501st most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Birefringence in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense the splitting of a ray of light into two parallel rays of perpendicular polariza:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | biréfringence |
| German | Birefringenz |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does birefringence come from?
From bi- + refringence.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).