Resistance definitions and example sentences on Wordnik

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Definitions (79)

American Heritage Dictionary (7)

noun The act or an instance of resisting or the capacity to resist.
noun A force that tends to oppose or retard motion.
noun An underground organization engaged in a struggle for national liberation in a country under military or totalitarian occupation.

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The act of resisting; opposition; antagonism. Resistance is passive, as that of a fixed body which interrupts the passage of a moving body; or active, as in the exertion of force to stop, repel, or defeat progress or design. Nae resistans durst they mak. Battle of Harlaw (Child's Ballads, VII. 183). He'll not swagger with a Barbary hen, if her feathers turn back in any show of resistance. Shak., 2 Hen. IV., ii. 4. 109.
The force exerted by a fluid or other medium to retard the motion of a body through it; more generally, any force which always acts in a direction opposite to the residual velocity, or to any component of it: as, resistance to shearing. In a phrase like this, resistance may be defined as a stress produced by a strain, and tending to restoration of figure. But the resistance is not necessarily elastic—that is, it may cease, and as resistance does cease, when the velocity vanishes. In the older dynamical treatises, resistance is always considered as a function of the velocity, except in the case of friction, which does not vary with the velocity, or at least not much. In modern hydrodynamics the viscosity is taken into account, and produces a kind of resistance partly proportional to the velocity and partly to the acceleration. The theory of resistance still remains imperfect. Energy, which is force acting, does work in overcoming Resistance, which is force acted on and reacting. G. H. Lewes, Probs. of Life and Mind, II. v. § 5.
In electricity, that property of a conductor in virtue of which the passage of a current through it is accompanied by a dissipation of energy; the transformation of electric energy into heat. It is one of the two elements upon which the strength of an electric current depends when the flow is steady; the other is electromotive force, and the relation between them is generally expressed by the equation C =E/R. which is Ohm's law. Resistance may therefore be defined as the ratio of the electromotive force to the current strength (R =E/C), the flow being assumed to be steady, for simple periodic alternate currents, the resistance increases as therapidlty of alternation increases, and it also depends on the form of the conductor. Resistance to such currents is sometimes called impedance and also virtual resistance, that for steady flow being named ohmic resistance. In general, resistance is proportional to the length of the conductor and inversely proportional to its cross-section. It also varies with the temperature of the conductor, the nature of the material of which it is composed, the stress to which it is subjected, and in some instances with other physical conditions, as in the case of selenium, the resistance of which diminishes as the intensity of the light to which it is exposed increases. It is the reciprocal of conductivity. The unit of resistance is the ohm (which see). The designation resistance is also applied to mils of wire or other material devices which are introduced into electric circnits on account of the resistance which they other to the passage of the current. The resistance of a conductor may be measured by Wheatstone's bridge. This is a device for the accurate comparison of electric resistances, invented by Christie and brought into notice by Wheatstone. It consists essentially of a complex circuit of six conductors, arranged as shown in the cut. A current from the battery B enters at the junction of a and c, and, after dividing into parts depending on the relative resistances of the branches a, b, c, and d, returns to the battery through the junction of & and d. G is a galvanometer joined to the junctions a b and c d. When the relative resistances are such that a: b:: c: d, no current will flow through the galvanometer. If a and b are comparable and adjustable resistances, it is only necessary to establish this condition in order to know the ratio of c to d. Many modifications of the bridge have been devised.

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Either his resistance was at a low point, or the air currents in the room had carried the anaesthetic gas directly to him The man falling out of the chair should have helped the anaesthetic gas attack. — 126 - The Mental Monster
Though I might have removed, notwithstanding my mother-in-law's resistance, yet I would not without her consent; because it looked to me as if her resistance was an order of Heaven. — AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MADAME GUYON
He added, "Abu Ahmed": "The real battle has not started yet and the resistance are thousands, and the resistance is all right, did not fall much of the resistance in this battle, and the enemy shelling of civilians to cover his failure, while the resistance to the expansion of readiness in the event of aggression." — WHAT REALLY HAPPENED
I'm with a dignified response to attacks on civilians but against any irresponsible action that would confirm that indeed, the resistance is a threat to the illegal state that is called Israel. — The Sugar cubes
The logic of those who demand that we stop our resistance is absurd. — War in Context

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resistance

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