semiform
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From Latin sēmifōrmis, equivalent to semi- + form.
Noun
[edit]semiform (plural semiforms)
- A partial or imperfect form.
- 1880, Horace Bushnell, Mary A. Bushnell Cheney, Life and Letters of Horace Bushnell, page 531:
- For seventeen years he had kept death at bay, and, at the time I speak of, medical diagnosis revealed that but one lung supported his remnant of life; thet that semiform of life seemed equal to the prime of many a hale man .
- 1969, United States. Congress. House, Hearings - Volume 7, page 649:
- Prior to that it was in a semiform state for 2 years, semiform state being that various groups have gotten together to say there should be a committee, so that would be approximately 5 years' life to the committee.
- 1990, Dhanjoo N. Ghista, Clinical Cardiac Assessment, Interventions, and Assist Technology, page 152:
- The semiform is covered with a thermoplastic bar preheated in a special chamber up to superelastic state .
- (crystallography) A crystal structure that is more elaborate than the simplest (primitive) form but which does not include all the faces and symmetry elements characteristic of the full crystal system.
- 1882, L. Fletcher, “Crystallographic Notes”, in London, Edinburgh and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science (Supplement), volume 13, page 479:
- This semiform π (312) is again to be observed on crystal No. 13, though it is there represented by only a single face.
- 1886, R. H. Solly, “On the Tetartohedral Development of a Crystal of Tourmaline”, in The Mineralogical Magazine and Journal of the Mineralogical Society, volume 6, page 81:
- As crystals of tourmaline do not rotate the plane of polarisation, it is probable that in the case of the present crystal the hemimorphic development is of a semiform, similar to those which have been observed on dioptase and apatite, and that the form should be designated crystallographically as υκπ {320}.
- 1895, Nevil Story-Maskelyne, Crystallography: A Treatise on the Morphology of Crystals, page 255:
- The eight normals of the tetragonal scalenohedron may carry the eight faces of a semiform in other ways than asymmetrically as regards the systematic planes.