REACTION • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Reaction

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/riˈækʃən/ Listen

noun

Reaction n.

1.

Any action in resisting other action or force; counter tendency; movement in a contrary direction; reverse action.

2.

(Chem.) The mutual or reciprocal action of chemical agents upon each other, or the action upon such chemical agents of some form of energy, as heat, light, or electricity, resulting in a chemical change in one or more of these agents, with the production of new compounds or the manifestation of distinctive characters. See Blowpipe reaction, Flame reaction, under Blowpipe, and Flame.

3.

(Med.) An action induced by vital resistance to some other action; depression or exhaustion of vital force consequent on overexertion or overstimulation; heightened activity and overaction succeeding depression or shock.

4.

(Mech.) The force which a body subjected to the action of a force from another body exerts upon the latter body in the opposite direction. "Reaction is always equal and opposite to action, that is to say, the actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal and in opposite directions."

5.

(Politics) Backward tendency or movement after revolution, reform, or great progress in any direction. "The new king had, at the very moment at which his fame and fortune reached the highest point, predicted the coming reaction."

6.

(Psycophysics) A regular or characteristic response to a stimulation of the nerves.

7.

An action by a person or people in response to an event. The reaction may be primarily mental (" a reaction of surprise") but is usually manifested by some activity.

Reaction time (Physiol.), in nerve physiology, the interval between the application of a stimulus to an end organ of sense and the reaction or resulting movement; called also physiological time.

Reaction wheel (Mech.), a water wheel driven by the reaction of water, usually one in which the water, entering it centrally, escapes at its periphery in a direction opposed to that of its motion by orifices at right angles, or inclined, to its radii.

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Etymology of 'Reaction'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Reaction" Quotes from Famous Books

... ready-handed criminal agent, as it was possible to conceive. In his singular character the dual nature alternately asserted itself, and his extreme exactness and astuteness represented, as I have often thought, the reaction against the poetic and contemplative mood which occasionally predominated in him. The swing of his nature took him from extreme languor to devouring energy; and, as I knew well, he was never so truly ...

— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various

... distant when the builders of homes in our American cities will be compelled to leave room for a garden, in order to meet the requirements of the people In the mad rush for wealth we have overlooked the natural state, but we see a healthy reaction setting in. With the improvements in steam and electricity, the revolutionizing of transportation, the cutting of the arbitrary telephone charges, it is becoming possible to live at a distance from our business. May we not expect in the near future to see one ...

— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall

... time. It forms a part of the philosophic atmosphere to-day. The tough think of the tender as sentimentalists and soft-heads. The tender feel the tough to be unrefined, callous, or brutal. Their mutual reaction is very much like that that takes place when Bostonian tourists mingle with a population like that of Cripple Creek. Each type believes the other to be inferior to itself; but disdain in the one case is mingled with ...

— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James

... it broadly from the older world; and the unity of the new is manifest in the universal spirit of investigation and discovery which did not cease to operate, and withstood the recurring efforts of reaction, until, by the advent of the reign of general ideas which we call the Revolution, it at length prevailed.[12] This successive deliverance and gradual passage, for good and evil, from subordination to independence is a phenomenon of primary import ...

— A Lecture on the Study of History • Lord Acton

... was the aesthetic revolution of Morris, there was a very definite limit to it. It did not lie only in the fact that his revolution was in truth a reaction, though this was a partial explanation of his partial failure. When he was denouncing the dresses of modern ladies, 'upholstered like arm-chairs instead of being draped like women,' as he forcibly expressed it, he would hold up for practical imitation the costumes and handicrafts ...

— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton

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