1656 T. Hobbes Six Lessons iv. 38 in Elements Philos. The increasing Impetus..will be designed by the Ordinate Lines in the Parabola.]

1676 J. Collins Let. 19 Aug. in S. P. Rigaud & S. J. Rigaud Corr. Sci. Men 17th Cent. (1841) (modernized text) II. 7 The angle that an ordinate in a known ellipsis makes with either of the axes.

1706 Phillips's New World of Words (new ed.) Ordinate or Ordinate Applicate (in Conick Sections) is a Line drawn at Right Angles to the Axis, (which cuts it into two equal Parts) and reaching from one side of the Section to the other. The Half of this Line is properly the Semi-Ordinate, but is now commonly called the Ordinate.

1726 E. Stone New Math. Dict. If any Right and Parallel Lines be drawn and terminated on both sides by one and the same Conic-Section, and a Right Line bisecting any two of them, shall bisect all the rest..All the Right Lines so bisected, are called Ordinate Applicates to that Diameter [ordinatim applicatæ ad Diametrum].

1807 C. Hutton Course Math. (ed. 5) II. 95 An Ordinate to any diameter, is a line parallel to its conjugate, or to the tangent at its vertex, and terminated by the diameter and curve.

1861 S. Smiles Lives Engineers II. vii. vi. 183 Transverse timbers,..laid across the whole of the ribs, set out to the exact form of the curve by ordinates from the main or longitudinal axis of the ellipsis.

1706 H. Ditton Inst. Fluxions 31 'Tis required to find the relation of the Fluxion of the Ordinate to the Fluxion of the Abscisse.

1855 I. Todhunter Treat. Plane Co-ordinate Geom. i. 2 OM is called the abscissa of the point P; and ON, or its equal MP, is called the ordinate of P.

1880 Proc. Royal Soc. 1879–80 30 511 The horizontal ordinates give the stress.., the vertical ordinates give the elongation.

1891 C. Taylor Elem. Geom. Conics (ed. 7) 8 The Principal Ordinate, or briefly the Ordinate, of any point is the perpendicular drawn from it to the axis.

1948 Electronic Engin. 20 10/1 This apparatus was constructed to produce a trace on a cathode ray tube in which the ordinates were proportional to shutter opening and the abscissa to time.

1971 N. O. Niles & G. E. Haborak Calculus with Analytic Geom. i. 14 The directed distance OM is the x-coordinate or abscissa of point P and is denoted by x. The directed distance ON is the y-coordinate or ordinate of point P and is denoted by y.

1991 Struct. Change & Econ. Dynamics 2 109 We measure log spectral density on the ordinate axis, and frequency on the abscissa.

1508 in J. Robertson Illustr. Topogr. & Antiq. Aberdeen & Banff (1847) II. 333 [I] George Meldrum..makis, constitutis and ordinatis ane honorable man..bailye of my landis.

1562 N. Winȝet Certain Tractates (1888) I. 15 As the Apostolis ordinatit St. Paule and Barnabas.

1565 J. Jewel Def. Apol. Churche Eng. (1611) 568 As for that ye say, Your Bishops be duly Ordinated and Consecrated.

1609 S. Daniel Civile Wares (rev. ed.) iv. xxii. 93 Richard..this man did ordinate The heyre apparent to the Crowne and Land.

1945 L. Saxon et al. Gumbo Ya-Ya xix. 411 The procedure ordinating Sister Walker was precisely the same as for the first candidate.

1555 M. Huggarde Mirrour of Love l. 118 Whan by course, as god hath ordinated, Phebus had entered into Gemini, The fields w^t flours wer freshly furnished.

1610 G. Carleton Iurisdict. 292 The publike good is peace, whereunto justices and just warres are ordinated.

1660 N. Ingelo Bentivolio & Urania iv. 277 The Precepts and Actions of Vertue are..all ordinated to one End.

1850 L. Hunt Autobiogr. (1860) xxxv. 399 Providence, by the like reasoning, ordinates dreadful revenge and retribution.

1595 S. Daniel First Fowre Bks. Ciuile Warres i. lxx. sig. D4^v He..That best knowes how a realme to ordinate.

1646 Bp. J. Hall Balme of Gilead 113 That over-ruling hand of the Almighty, who ordinates all their motions to his owne holy purposes.

1701 T. Beverley Praise of Glory 24 Even those Great Links, and Branches of Salvation, that are within us,..Are yet so Ordinated, that they are to the Praise of the glory of grace.

1823 T. De Quincey Lett. Young Man in London Mag. July 92/1 He did no more than regulate and ordinate the evident nisus and tendency of the popular usage into a severe definition.

a1894 R. B. W. Noel Coll. Poems (1902) 89 I kneeled and worshipped, feeding on the Wonder That ordinates the wild turmoil from under.

a1966 W. Everson Coll. Poems (1998) II. 324 She takes her tribute of the teeming earth. Dung and all darks are hers to ordinate.

1882 F. W. Farrar Early Days Christianity II. 385 The sentences are ordinated by simple conjunctions, not subordinated to each other by final particles.

1882 T. Hardy Two on Tower I. xii. 208 I have never ordinated two such dissimilar ideas.

1962 Ecol. Monogr. 32 137 (heading) Ordinating forest communities by means of environmental scalars and phytosociological indices.

1969 E. C. Pielou Introd. Math. Ecol. xx. 255 When we wish to ordinate vegetation by means of a principal components analysis, there are four decisions to make.

1999 Jrnl. Ecol. 87 1044/2 Soil types were ordinated quite differently in the data from spring-sown crops.

1562 N. Winȝet Certain Tractates (1888) I. 16 Guie he can nocht schaw him self ane lauchfull ordinatit bischope.

1652 J. Gaule Πυς-μαντια 152 To an ordinated destiny of an unfortunate end; comes in inordinately fire, water, a fall, a gun, a sword.

1857 S. Dobell Thoughts on Art, Philos., & Relig. (1876) 20 These primary laws for the construction of an Epic: that it must be an ordinated thing: that as to this arrangement it must be that of one subject with that subject's congruous accessories.