Glossary
Optometrist Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential optometrist terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key optometrist vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in optometrist training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- Astigmatism
- Irregular corneal shape.
- Cataract
- Clouding of the lens.
- Diabetic retinopathy
- Eye damage from diabetes.
- Dilation
- Widening pupils for exams.
- Dry eye
- Poor tear quality.
- Glaucoma
- Optic nerve damage, often from pressure.
- Hyperopia
- Farsightedness.
- Macular degeneration
- Loss of central vision.
- Myopia
- Nearsightedness.
- OCT
- Optical coherence tomography.
- Presbyopia
- Age-related near vision loss.
- Refraction
- Measuring a glasses prescription.
- Slit lamp
- Microscope for eye exams.
- Tonometry
- Measuring eye pressure.
- Visual acuity
- Sharpness of vision.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Optometrist practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Optometrist training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.