释义 |
tan·gent I. \ˈtanjənt, ˈtaan-\ adjective Etymology: Latin tangent-, tangens, present participle of tangere to touch; akin to Greek tetagōn having seized, Old English thaccian to stroke, touch gently 1. a. : touching at a single point < a straight line tangent to a curve > b. (1) : having a common tangent line at a point — used of two curves in a plane, two space curves, or a surface and a space curve (2) : having a common tangent plane at a point — used of two surfaces 2. a. : diverging from an original purpose or course : erratic < much of his work is chaotic and distorted by tangent obsessions — Tennessee Williams > b. : contiguous : being in agreement < subject matter tangent to the country's growth in those years — M.F.Milton > II. noun (-s) Etymology: New Latin tangent-, tangens, from Latin, present participle of tangere to touch 1. a. : tangent line b. : the ordinate of any point on the terminal side of an angle divided by the nonzero abscissa of this point with the vertex coinciding with the origin of a plane rectangular coordinate system and the initial side of the angle coinciding with the positive x-axis — abbr. tan 2. : a course abruptly deviating from that previously pursued : digression, irrelevancy < avoid wandering off on tangents — J.F.Wharton > < his critics … went off at a tangent — Saul Carson > 3. : a small upright flat-ended metal pin at the inner end of a clavichord key that strikes the string to produce the musical tone and fixes the pitch by damping the string 4. : a piece of straight railroad track III. noun : a trigonometric function that is equal to the sine divided by the cosine for all real numbers θ for which the cosine is not equal to zero and is exactly equal to the tangent of an angle of measure θ in radians |