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Perpendicular
//ˌpɜː.pənˈdɪk.jə.lə(ɹ)// adj, noun, slang
Definitions
Adjective
- 1 At or forming a right angle (to something).
"In most houses, the walls are perpendicular to the floor."
- 2 Of a style of English Gothic architecture from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, marked by stiff and rectilinear lines, mostly vertical window-tracery, depressed or four-centre arch, fan-tracery vaulting, and panelled walls.
- 3 Exactly upright; extending in a straight line toward the centre of the earth, etc.
- 4 Independent of or irrelevant to each other; orthogonal.
"Hey, I'm not unsabotaging anything! This is completely perpendicular sabotage!"
Adjective
- 1 so steep as to be nearly vertical wordnet
- 2 at right angles to the plane of the horizon or a base line wordnet
- 3 intersecting at or forming right angles wordnet
Noun
- 1 A line or plane that is perpendicular to another.
- 2 an extremely steep face wordnet
- 3 A device such as a plumb line that is used in making or marking a perpendicular line.
- 4 a cord from which a metal weight is suspended pointing directly to the earth's center of gravity; used to determine the vertical from a given point wordnet
- 5 A meal eaten at a tavern bar while standing up. obsolete, slang
Show 2 more definitions
- 6 a Gothic style in 14th and 15th century England; characterized by vertical lines and a four-centered (Tudor) arch and fan vaulting wordnet
- 7 a straight line at right angles to another line wordnet
Etymology
Etymology 1
Derived from Middle French perpendiculaire, from Old French perpendiculer, from Latin perpendiculum (“plumb line”).
Etymology 2
Derived from Middle French perpendiculaire, from Old French perpendiculer, from Latin perpendiculum (“plumb line”).
See also for "perpendicular"
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