[ad. L. aberrātiōn-em, n. of action, from aberrāre: see ABERR. The Fr. aberration seems to be later.] The action of wandering away or straying; the state of error or irregularity thence resulting.
1. lit. A wandering away, a straying; a deviation or divergence from the straight or recognized path.
1615. H. Crooke, Body of Man, 42. These vessels do not directly passe vnto the braine, but after diuers contortions and aberrations from a right & direct progresse.
1794. Sullivan, View of Nature, II. 83. The aberration of the common center of all these currents from the north point.
1827. Scott, Surg. Daugh., i. 23. The slightest aberration would plunge him into a morass, or throw him over a precipice.
1827. Carlyle, Misc., Richter (1869), 18. A comet with long aberrations.
1830. Lyell, Princ. Geol., II. 81. The aberration of plants to great distances from their native countries.
1878. Lady Herbert, trans. Hübner’s Round the World, II. viii. 433. We hope that something useful will come out of their aberrations.
2. fig. A deviation or divergence from a direct, prescribed, or ordinary course or mode of action.
1610–31. Donne, Selections (1840), 206. Though thy heart have some variations, some deviations, some aberrations from that direct point, upon which it should be bent.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., 262. Where the real works of Nature, or veritable acts of story are to be described, digressions are aberrations.
1648. Herrick, Hesperides, I. 42. If thou chance t’espie Some abberrations in my poetry.
1750. Johnson, Rambler, No. 86. ¶ 13. More than one aberration from the rule in any single verse.
1817. Jas. Mill, Brit. India, II. IV. i. 10. Promoted according to the rule of seniority, unless where directions from home prescribed aberration.
1861. Geo. Eliot, Silas Marner, 80. The very pins on her pincushion were stuck in after a pattern from which she was careful to allow no aberration.
1881. Westcott & Hort, N. T. in Greek, II. 249. Such singular readings of א would be nothing more than examples of early aberration early extinguished.
3. A wandering from the path of rectitude, or standard of morality; moral irregularity.
1594. T. B[eard], trans. La Primaudaye’s Fr. Acad., 2, Ep. to Reader. Error in religion and aberration in manners.
1656. Bp. Hall, Occ. Med. (1851), 103. The distractions of my thoughts, and the aberrations of my life.
1813. Sismondi, Lit. Europe (1846), II. xxi. 28. Deep pity for her mother’s aberration.
1840. H. Rogers, Essays, II. v. 221. The infallible standard by which each man measures the aberrations of his neighbour.
1869. Lecky, Europ. Morals, II. i. 5. Habitually measuring character by its aberrations.
4. A wandering of the intellect, an abnormal state of any intellectual faculty; deficiency or partial alienation of reason.
1823. Lingard, Hist. Eng., VI. 312. Her affliction seemed to produce occasional aberrations of intellect.
1829. Scott, Demonology, x. 354. Shades of mental aberration have afterwards occurred.
1878. Seeley, Stein, II. 554. The slightest aberration in his [Napoleon’s] mind, might be represented by the complete transformation of Europe.
5. Deviation from the ordinary or normal type of any natural production; abnormal structure or development.
1846. Lytton, Lucretia (1853), Pref. And the phenomena that seemed aberrations from nature were explained.
1869. Buckle, Civ., II. vii. 403. The apparent aberrations presented by minerals are strictly regular. Ibid., III. v. 444. He studied the aberrations of structure and of function.
6. Optics. The non-convergence of rays of light, reflected or refracted, to one focus.
That due to the failure of a spherical mirror or lens to cause all the rays to meet in a single point (as is effected by a parabolic mirror or lens) is called spherical aberration; the distance of any ray from the geometrical focus, when measured along the axis, is its longitudinal aberration, and when measured at right angles to the axis, its lateral aberration. Chromatic aberration is an additional irregularity in the refraction of light through lenses, due to the different refrangibilities of the different colored constituents of white light, whereby these diverge from one another, fringing the images of objects with the prismatic colors.
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp. There are two species of the aberrations of rays … one arising from the figure of the glass or speculum, the other from the unequal refrangibility of the rays of light.
1868. Lockyer, Elem. Less. Astron., No. 466. 217. If such an achromatic lens be truly made, and its curves properly regulated, it is said to have its spherical aberration corrected as well as its chromatic one, and the image of a star will form a nearly colourless point at its focus.
7. Astron. The displacement of the true position of a heavenly body to an observer on the earth, occasioned by the joint effect of the earth’s motion, and the non-instantaneous transmission of light; hence also called aberration of light.
As the earth has two motions, there is a diurnal as well as an annual aberration, the amount of the former being, for a star, very minute. Planetary aberration is effected by the additional element of the motion of the planet itself, during the time occupied by the passage of its light to the earth.
1856. Lardner, Astron., § 2448. The apparent displacement produced by aberration is always in the direction of the earth’s motion.
1867. E. B. Denison, Astron. without Math., 193. We may explain aberration thus: If you are running when the rain comes down straight without any wind, you get wet in front and not behind, and the rain beats against you as it would if you were standing still, and the wind blowing in your face. And if you carry an empty telescope tube pointed straight up, the rain will not fall through it, but will strike against the back inside: if you want the rain to fall through, you must slope the tube forwards, more or less according to your velocity forwards compared with that of the rain downwards. Then for rain substitute light, and the motion of the earth for your own running, and you know what aberration is.
1869. Dunkin, Midnight Sky, 157. Dr. Bradley … made the important discovery of the aberration of light.
