erecting prism
- noun
- Specialized
:
prisma erectante
- Without an erecting prism, the image would appear upside-down to the user.
Examples
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The camera's viewfinder contains an erecting prism to correct the inverted image from the lens.
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Binoculars often use an erecting prism to display the image right side up.
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The erecting prism is essential for this telescope.
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Have you ever used an erecting prism before?
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The astronomer used an erecting prism to ensure the telescope showed a correctly oriented image of the stars.
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With an erecting prism in place, the view through the microscope was no longer inverted and much easier to analyze.
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To improve visibility, the engineers installed an erecting prism that corrected the orientation of the projected image.
Synonyms
3
5.0
A triangular piece of glass that bends light and splits it into colors
A five-sided glass piece in some cameras that bounces light to show an upright image to the photographer
Surface Forms
Morphology
The noun phrase is compositionally a prism that 'erects' (makes upright) images, so a learner who knows 'prism' and the verb 'erect' could infer it is a prism that makes an upside-down image upright. However, 'erecting' more commonly appears in a construction/building sense and the optical use is technical domain-specific vocabulary, so the exact function may not be fully predictable to an average B1 learner without some exposure.
Etymology
Erecting prism is a small glass piece called a prism that flips an upside-down picture to make it upright. The word erecting means 'making upright', so the name explains the device's job: to give a 'right side up' image.