Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of or relating to the eye.
  • adjective Resembling the eye in form or function.
  • adjective Of or relating to the sense of sight.
  • adjective Seen by the eye; visual.
  • noun The eyepiece of an optical instrument.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Of or pertaining to the eye; ophthalmic; optic: as, ocular movements; the ocular (optic) nerve.
  • Depending on the eye; known by the eye; received by actual sight or seeing; optical; visual: as, ocular proof; ocular demonstration or evidence.
  • In entomology, pertaining to the compound eyes: distinguished from ocellar.
  • noun In optics, the eyepiece of an optical instrument, as of a telescope or microscope. See eyepiece.
  • noun Something which is conveyed to the mind through actual sight.
  • noun The eye.
  • noun In Echinoidea, an ocular plate.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Opt.) The eyepiece of an optical instrument, as of a telescope or microscope.
  • adjective Depending on, or perceived by, the eye; received by actual sight; personally seeing or having seen.
  • adjective (Anat.) Of or pertaining to the eye; optic.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Of, or relating to the eye, or the sense of sight
  • adjective Resembling the eye
  • adjective Seen by the eye; visual
  • noun The eyepiece of a microscope or other optical instrument

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective relating to or using sight
  • adjective of or relating to or resembling the eye
  • adjective visible
  • noun combination of lenses at the viewing end of optical instruments

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Late Latin oculāris, from Latin oculus, eye; see okw- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin oculāris ("of the eye"), from oculus ("eye").

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Examples

  • She has already told the story, and to-day she was to give all her set what she calls ocular demonstration.

    Tales and Novels — Volume 10 Maria Edgeworth 1808

  • Anway, my ocular is wars have been fomented by these same tried and true methods.

    Think Progress » Bush Administration Pushes False Propaganda, Condemns It 2005

  • One of my early tasks in the process is an ocular, which is when I go to the venue and construct the shots in my mind.

    ocular Dean Francis Alfar 2005

  • _ This may be called the ocular demonstration method, which consists in having a part of the company go through the exercise or drill, while the rest of the company observes what is being done.

    Manual of Military Training Second, Revised Edition 1906

  • Yes -- till there came floating along a couple of those knobs that look like big marbles -- only all the time they are what old Morley calls ocular prominences over the beastly leering eyes of one of those crocodiles on the lookout for grub.

    Trapped by Malays A Tale of Bayonet and Kris George Manville Fenn 1870

  • When the remains of colours are seen in the eye, they are termed ocular spectra; when remaining sounds are heard in the ear, they may be called auricular murmurs; but when the remaining motions, or ideas, of the sense of touch continue, as in this vertigo of a blindfolded person, they have acquired no name, but may be termed evanescent titillations, or tangible hallucinations.

    Zoonomia, Vol. II Or, the Laws of Organic Life Erasmus Darwin 1766

  • When any one has long and attentively looked at a bright object, as at the setting sun, on closing his eyes, or removing them, an image, which resembles in form the object he was attending to, continues some time to be visible; this appearance in the eye we shall call the ocular spectrum of that object.

    Zoonomia, Vol. I Or, the Laws of Organic Life Erasmus Darwin 1766

  • III. of this work, that the colours remaining in the eyes, which are termed ocular spectra, are ideas, or sensual motions, belonging to the sense of vision, which for too long a time continue their activity.

    Zoonomia, Vol. II Or, the Laws of Organic Life Erasmus Darwin 1766

  • THURSDAY, July 15 (HealthDay News) -- Shielding the eye with silicon oil may safeguard the eyesight of patients who must undergo radiation therapy for an eye cancer known as ocular melanoma, new research suggests.

    Yahoo! News: Business - Opinion 2010

  • He suffers from an eye disease called ocular histoplasmosis and volunteers at the Waco VA's blind unit.

    wacotrib - Latest News Headlines 2010

Comments

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  • Upon my soul, madam, the fire was real-- (and so it was, Jack!)-- The house might have been consumed by it, as you will be convinced in the morning by ocular demonstration.

    Lovelace speaking to Clarissa (as described in his letter to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 16, 2007

  • For flowers are musical in ocular harmony. (from Jubilate Agno by Christopher Smart)

    December 31, 2007