reflected

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of reflect.

   The calm water reflected the city skyline at dusk.

   The latest figures reflected a sharp rise in demand.

   Note

   One spelling serves both the simple past and the past participle, so the words around it decide which is meant. With have it forms the perfect (the figures have reflected demand). With be it forms the passive, which only the transitive uses allow: the skyline was reflected in the water. Light that reflected off the glass is intransitive and has no passive. Before a noun the same form becomes the adjective for returned light.

2. 2
   adjective

   Bent or thrown back from a surface, especially in the case of incident sound or light.

   The reflected glare from the lake made it hard to see the shore.

   Engineers measured the reflected sound to map the shape of the cave.

   Oppositedirect

   Note

   The adjective is not limited to sound and light: reflected heat works the same way, naming energy that has come back off a surface rather than arriving straight from its source. It normally sits before its noun. After be, the same form usually reads as the passive of the verb instead, as in light was reflected from the lake.

3. 3
   adjective

   Gained indirectly from another person's work or success rather than one's own.

   The assistant basked in the reflected status of working for a celebrity.

   Much of the family's reflected prestige came from a single distinguished ancestor.

   Similarvicarious, secondhand

   Note

   A figure of speech built on the sense for returned light: the glory falls on someone the way reflected light does, from a source that is not their own. Its home is the phrase bask in reflected glory, and the verb matters, because bask keeps the picture of sitting in borrowed sunshine. Status or prestige can replace glory, but the person basking is always someone close to the achiever.

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