opticals
- 1Plural of optical.
The technician aligned the opticals inside the laser housing.
Precision opticals must be polished to exact tolerances.
Note
A word from the film laboratory. The noun optical names a special effect that needs laboratory work on the film itself, and opticals is its regular plural for a set of such effects. Only the noun takes the -s. The adjective, meaning 'of sight', 'of optics' or 'of visible light', never does, so opticals always signals that the word is standing alone as a noun.
- 2A pair of eyeglasses, worn to correct or assist a person's vision.
The optometrist recommended thinner lenses for her next pair of opticals.
He misplaced his opticals again and squinted at the screen all morning.
Similarglasses, spectacles, eyeglasses, specs
Note
An Indian English word for glasses, and one that lives only in the plural: you wear opticals, or a pair of opticals, never an optical, and the verb is plural (my opticals are scratched). The Chemical Engineer in 2003 set it off in inverted commas as one of several charming Indian-English terms. Where a singular optical does exist, its plural is the ordinary plural noun, a separate word.
opticals is a form of optical
optical, noun: A special effect created by processing the film in a laboratory rather than capturing it in the camera. Full entry
- Forms
- opticalopticals plural
- Spelling
- optical → opticals: add -s
- Sound
- The ending sounds like /z/.
Use it in a sentence
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