optical aberration op·ti·ca·laberration uncommon noun 1. an optical phenomenon resulting from the failure of a lens or mirror to produce a good image Synonymsaberrationdistortionoptical aberration Related words Word family aberrate Broader terms optical phenomenon Narrower terms chromatic aberrationspherical aberration WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved.