eccentric

Pluraleccentrics

1. 1
   quirkyadjective

   Of a person, unconventional and slightly strange, behaving in unexpected ways that depart from the norm.

   The eccentric professor lectured in his slippers and kept a parrot in his office.

   Locals regarded the old collector as harmlessly eccentric.

   Similarodd, quirky, unconventional, strange, peculiar

   Oppositeconventional, normal, ordinary

   Note

   The off-center picture of the spatial sense carried over to a life: someone whose path runs a little off the usual track. In the early 1800s whole books of such lives bore the word in their titles, Eccentric Biography and The Eccentric Mirror among them. It is a mild, often indulgent word, odd rather than mad: harmlessly eccentric, a most eccentric turn of mind.

2. 2
   a strange personnouncountable

   A person who does not behave like others, especially one with odd or bizarre habits or beliefs.

   The village has always had its share of eccentrics, from the hermit by the lake to the man who talks to his bees.

   Colleagues dismissed her as an eccentric until her theory was proved right.

   Similarcharacter

   Note

   As a noun it ranges from the affectionate to the dismissive: a feisty woman who always spoke her mind can be a natural eccentric, and so can a kook with bizarre beliefs. Character is the friendlier synonym. The neuropsychologist David Weeks went further, claiming that eccentrics live longer, happier and healthier lives than conformists.

3. 3
   off centeradjective

   Located away from the center rather than at or in it.

   In trees that lean, the pith is often eccentric, lying well off the middle of the trunk.

   An eccentric load on a column, applied away from its axis, makes it bend as well as compress.

   Similaroff-center

   Oppositecentral, centered

   Note

   The literal, spatial sense keeps the word's origin in plain view: Greek ékkentros joined ek, "out", to kéntron, "point", and described an orbit without the earth at its center. In analytical prose a political party's policy position can be more eccentric than its rivals', sitting farther from the middle of the map.

4. 4
   lowering exercisenouncountable

   An exercise that works against a muscle's contraction, moving in the opposite direction to it.

   Physical therapists often prescribe eccentrics for tendon problems in the heel.

   Do a slow eccentric on the last rep, lowering the bar for a count of five.

   Note

   Trainers and clinicians turn the "lengthening under load" adjective into a noun for the exercise itself, often plural, as in eccentrics, heavy partials and static work. Recovery is the point to watch: such training may need several days or weeks before the muscle is ready again.

5. 5
   adjective

   Of a motion, going against the direction in which a muscle is contracting, as when an outside force bends the elbow while the triceps contracts to control it.

   During the eccentric phase of a squat, the thigh muscles stay active as the hips sink toward the floor.

   Opening the mouth slowly while the masseter stays tense is an eccentric motion for that muscle.

   Oppositeconcentric

   Note

   Physiologists use it for a muscle that keeps pulling while it lengthens, braking a movement rather than producing it: the thighs lowering you into a squat, the biceps easing down a heavy bag. Its opposite is concentric, the shortening pull. Eccentric work handles heavier loads and typically leaves more soreness afterward.

6. 6
   machine partnouncountable

   A disk or wheel mounted on an axis away from its center, so that turning it produces a back-and-forth motion.

   On a steam locomotive, an eccentric on the driving axle works the valve gear.

   Machinists replaced the worn eccentric that drove the press's reciprocating ram.

   Note

   The engineer's eccentric does the job of a small crank but can sit on a straight, unbroken shaft. A strap fitted round the disk and joined to a rod carries the motion to a valve or pump; on steam engines, setting the eccentrics one way or the reverse decided whether the engine ran forward or backward.

7. 7
   oval (orbits)adjective

   Shaped as an ellipse rather than a perfect circle.

   Mercury's orbit is noticeably eccentric compared with Earth's nearly circular one.

   An eccentric orbit carries the satellite low over one hemisphere and far out into space over the other.

   Similarelliptical

   Oppositecircular

   Note

   Here the word is a matter of degree, and astronomers turn it into a measure, eccentricity, so that orbits can be ranked: more eccentric means more stretched away from a circle. As of 2008 the moon Margaret had the most eccentric orbit in the solar system, though Nereid's mean eccentricity was greater.

8. 8
   off centeradjective

   Having a center different from that of another; not concentric.

   Because the inner and outer walls of the tube were eccentric, its thickness varied around the circumference.

   An eccentric reducer joins two pipes of different sizes along one shared edge instead of on a common axis.

   Oppositeconcentric

9. 9
   ancient astronomynouncountable

   A circle whose center is different from that of another circle.

   Greek astronomers placed the sun on an eccentric to account for seasons of unequal length.

   Medieval critics of Ptolemy objected to eccentrics and epicycles as physically impossible.

   Note

   A device of the old astronomy of circles: set the earth a little off a circle's center, and a sun or planet moving at an even pace will seem, from the earth, to speed up and slow down. Paired with the epicycle, it drew long debate over whether such circles could be physically real.

10. 10
    different goalsadjective

    Having goals or motives that differ from someone else's.

    Note

    Here the "different center" meaning is applied to purposes: two people whose aims do not share a center. Francis Bacon's essay "Wisdom for a Man's Self" pictures such a man, one who crooks whatever affairs pass through his hands to his own ends.

11. 11
    off centeradjective

    Of an oospore, having a single large oil globule on one side that displaces much of the ooplasm and crowds the ooplasts to one side.

    The isolate formed eccentric oospores, each with its oil globule crowded against one side of the wall.

    Whether oospores are centric or eccentric is one of the features used to tell these water molds apart.

    Oppositecentric

    Note

    Oospores are sorted into four grades by where their oil sits: centric, subcentric, subeccentric and eccentric, the last for a single large globule pushed to one side. It is one of the features used to tell water molds apart, set beside others such as the antheridial branches.

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