a. [f. UNI- 1 + AXIAL a.]
1. Optics and Crystall. Having one optical axis.
1827–8. Herschel, in Encycl. Metrop. (1845), IV. 520. When the two axes coalesce, or the crystal becomes uniaxial, the lemniscates become circles.
a. 1853. Pereira, Polarized Light (1854), 176. The crystal possesses the singular property of being uniaxial for violet light and biaxial for red.
1888. Rutley, Rock-Forming Min., 37. Uniaxial crystals.
2. Bot. and Zool. = MONAXIAL a.
1879. Rossiter, Dict. Sci., Uniaxial development: in all vertebrate animals, some molluscs and annulosa; in some of exogens, endogens, algæ, and fungi.
