English
reflex
Reflex comes from Late Latin reflexus ‘turned back or away, reflected’, and goes back to Latin flectō ‘to bend, curve or bow’.
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEflectō1‘to bend, curve or bow’
- Late Latinc. 200–600 CEreflectō2as reflectere, past participle‘to bend back’
- Late Latinc. 200–600 CEreflexus2‘turned back or away, reflected’
- Englishearliest quotation c. 1587–1588reflex2
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
- 1 Wiktionary, Latin reflecto
- 2 Wiktionary, English reflex
- Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: c. 1587–1588, Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […]: “The ſpring is hindered by your ſmoothering hoſt, For…”.
Lineage
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEflectōWiktionary, Latin reflecto‘to bend, curve or bow’
- Late Latinc. 200–600 CEreflectōWiktionary, English reflexas reflectere, past participle‘to bend back’
- Late Latinc. 200–600 CEreflexusWiktionary, English reflex‘turned back or away, reflected’
- Englishearliest quotation c. 1587–1588reflexWiktionary, English reflex. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: c. 1587–1588, Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […]: “The ſpring is hindered by your ſmoothering hoſt, For…”
The story
Photography sense is from noun sense meaning “reflection”.
Linked words
through Latin flectō ‘to bend, curve or bow’
flexibility, flexible, deflection, inflection, deflect, flexion, flexor, 10 more
Today it means
noun An automatic response to a simple stimulus which does not require mental processing.
Sources
Sources: Wiktionary, “reflex”; the older steps come from the Wiktionary entry for Latin reflecto. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.
Etymograph / Latin flectō / reflex