Definition of "reflection"

reflection

/ɹɪˈflɛkʃən/

noun
countable and uncountable, plural reflections
1. The act of reflecting or the state of being reflected.
2. The property of a propagated wave being thrown back from a surface (such as a mirror).
3. Something, such as an image, that is reflected.
4. Careful thought or consideration.
  Quotations
  But Richmond, his grandfather's darling, after one thoughtful glance cast under his lashes at that uncompromising countenance appeared to lose himself in his own reflections.
  1959, Georgette Heyer, chapter 1, in The Unknown Ajax
5. A representative manifestation or outcome of a condition, trend or trait.
  Quotations
  Zuckerberg said last month that the name change was a reflection of how much Facebook had evolved.
  2021 November 11, “When a Logo Doesn’t Risk It All: Meta’s Brand Is Designed for Unknown Worlds”, in The New York Times‎, archived from the original on 2023-08-04
  1. (followed by on) Used to make an implied criticism.
6. (computing) The process or mechanism of determining the capabilities of an object at run-time.
  Quotations
  DynamicMBeanFacade uses Java's reflection API to introspect the managed resource and discover data type information for attributes.
  2002, Java Enterprise Best Practices, O'Reilly
7. (anatomy) The folding of a part; a fold.