TANGENT

Tangent

In geometry, the tangent line to a plane curve at a given point is the straight line that "just touches" the curve at that point. Informally, it is a line through a pair of infinitely close points on the curve. More precisely, a straight line is said to be a tangent of a curve at a point on the curve if the line passes through the point on the curve and has slope where f is the derivative of f. A similar definition applies to space curves and curves in n-dimensional Euclidean space.

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tangent

Noun

  1. A straight line touching a curve at a single point without crossing it there.
  2. In a right triangle, the ratio of the length of the side opposite the angle to the length of the side adjacent to the angle. Symbols: tan, tg
  1. A topic nearly unrelated to the main topic, but having a point in common with it.
    I believe we went off onto a tangent when we started talking about monkeys on unicycles at his retirement party.
  2. A small metal blade by which a clavichord produces sound.

Adjective

  1. Touching a curve at a single point but not crossing it at that point.
  2. Of a topic, only loosely related to a main topic.


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: tangent
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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