Sine

//saɪn// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    In a right triangle, the ratio of the length of the side opposite an angle to the length of the hypotenuse.
  2. 2
    Acronym of short interspersed element, a type of retrotransposon in genomics. abbreviation, acronym, alt-of
  3. 3
    ratio of the length of the side opposite the given angle to the length of the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle wordnet
  4. 4
    Acronym of selective inhibitors of nuclear export, a drug for epithelioid sarcoma. abbreviation, acronym, alt-of

Example

More examples

"The functions sine and cosine take values between -1 and 1 (-1 and 1 included)."

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin sinus (“curve, bend; bosom”), a translation of Arabic جَيْب (jayb, “bosom”), a misidentification of the notation جيب (j-y-b), written without vowel diacritics, standing for Arabic جِيبَ (jība, “sine”), in turn from Sanskrit ज्या (jyā, “sine, chord, bowstring”) through the similar Sanskrit जीव (jīva, “sine, chord, life, existence”). Doublet of sinus.

Related phrases

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.