INCIDENCE • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Incidence

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/ˈɪnsədəns/ /ˈɪnsɪdəns/ Listen

noun

Incidence n.

A falling on or upon; an incident; an event; an occurrence. (Obs.)

(Physics) The direction in which a body, or a ray of light or heat, falls on any surface. "In equal incidences there is a considerable inequality of refractions."

The rate or ratio at which something occurs; as, the incidence of murder in Los Angeles; the incidence of cancer in men over 50.

Angle of incidence, the angle which a ray of light, or the line of incidence of a body, falling on any surface, makes with a perpendicular to that surface; also formerly, the complement of this angle.

Line of incidence, the line in the direction of which a surface is struck by a body, ray of light, and the like.

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Etymology of 'Incidence'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Incidence" Quotes from Famous Books

... disease is not only inconceivable, in the light of what is known about the germ-plasm, but there is no evidence to support it. While there is most decidedly such a thing as the inheritance of a tendency to or lack of resistance to a disease, it is not the result of incidence of the disease on the parent. It is possible to inherit a tendency to headaches or to chronic alcoholism; and it is possible to inherit a lack of resistance to common diseases such as malaria, small-pox or measles; but actually ...

— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson

... of Customs and Excise in Great Britain amounted in the last two years to L55,900,000, or at the rate of L1 7s. 5d. per head; in Ireland the average yield was L5,800,000, or at the rate of L1 7s. 10d. per head. The incidence of our consumption taxes is thus seen to be at the present time practically the same in Ireland as in Great Britain; and the much larger proportion of the Irish revenue obtained from them is due to the smaller relative yield of direct ...

— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various

... aloft into the air with cunning bias and calculation of projecting house-eaves. I do not understand the game; but it was clearly played something after the manner of our football, that is to say, with sides, and front and back players so arranged as to cover the greatest number of angles of incidence ...

— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds

... pretty playthings are available to the children of important men," he said absently. "An import of value for our exploited and impoverished world. Unfortunately they are, perhaps, a little ... ah, obvious. The incidence of nervous breakdowns is, ah, interfering with their sale. The children, of course, are unaffected, and love them." Evarin set the hypnotic wheel moving again, glanced sidewise at me, then ...

— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley

... theatricals, and juvenile debating societies. The propriety of all this has never been questioned and it is difficult to see why it should not be as proper in a town of 500,000 inhabitants as in one of 500. The incidence of the cost is a matter of detail. Why should such purely social use of these educational buildings—always common in small towns—have been allowed to fall into abeyance in the larger ones? It is hard to say; but with the recent great improvements in construction, the building of schools and libraries ...

— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick

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