Glossary
Optician Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential optician terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key optician vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in optician training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- ABO
- American Board of Opticianry.
- Anti-reflective coating
- Reduces glare.
- Base curve
- Lens curvature.
- Bifocal
- Two-power lens.
- Blue light filter
- Lens coating option.
- Contact lens
- Lens worn on the eye.
- Edging
- Cutting lenses to shape.
- Frame fit
- How glasses sit on the face.
- Lensometer
- Measures lens power.
- Optical center
- Lens’s optical focus point.
- Polycarbonate
- Impact-resistant lens material.
- Prescription
- The lens power order.
- Progressive lens
- No-line multifocal lens.
- Pupillary distance
- Distance between pupils.
- Segment height
- Lens measurement for multifocals.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Optician practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Optician training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.