This week’s theme
Words from geometry

This week’s words
elliptic
triangulation
squarely
tangent
asymptote

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(AS-im-toht)

MEANING:

noun:
1. Something or someone that gets closer and closer but never touches.
2. A straight line whose distance to a curve approaches zero as the curve approaches infinity.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Greek asymptotos (not falling together), from a- (not) + syn (with) + ptotos (falling), from piptein (to fall). Earliest documented use: 1656.

USAGE:

“Language, in relation to thought, must ever be regarded as an asymptote.”
F.W. Farrar; Essay on Origin of Language; John Murray; 1860.

“If I were a function, you would be my asymptote. I always tend toward you.”
Penny Reid; Neanderthal Seeks Human; Cipher-Naught; 2013.

“He scooped her into his arms and carried her into the interior part of the house. A place where they would pledge their love and become the asymptote that defied all the odds, when it dared to intersect and join lovers as one.”
ina Beckett; How to Win the Surgeon’s Heart; Harlequin; 2021.

See more usage examples of asymptote in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: