PERPENDICULAR • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Perpendicular

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/pˌərpəndˈɪkjələr/ Listen

noun

Perpendicular n.

A line at right angles to the plane of the horizon; a vertical line or direction.

(Geom.) A line or plane falling at right angles on another line or surface, or making equal angles with it on each side.

adjective

Perpendicular adj.

Exactly upright or vertical; pointing to the zenith; at right angles to the plane of the horizon; extending in a right line from any point toward the center of the earth.

(Geom.) At right angles to a given line or surface; as, the line ad is perpendicular to the line bc.

Perpendicular style (Arch.), a name given to the latest variety of English Gothic architecture, which prevailed from the close of the 14th century to the early part of the 16th; probably so called from the vertical style of its window mullions.

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Etymology of 'Perpendicular'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Perpendicular" Quotes from Famous Books

... nothing but flowering thyme and rounded pebbles. There was ample scope for every imaginable polygon; trapezes and triangles could be combined in all sorts of ways. The inaccessible distances had ample elbow-room; and there was even an old ruin, once a pigeon-house, that lent its perpendicular to ...

— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre

... generally only be realized when these lines are taken in the flank. "The fire of the machine gun parallel to the probable front of the enemy—a flanking fire—must therefore be the rule." The fire perpendicular to the front will be employed generally on certain necessary points of passage as, bridges, roads, defiles, cuts, roadways, communicating trenches, etc., where the enemy is generally forced to take a deep formation ...

— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker

... of explanation Tom picked up the T-square, placing the top at the side of the drawing surface. Then against the limb of the "T" Tom laid the base of a right-angled triangle. Along this edge he drew his perpendicular north-and-south line in the upper left-hand corner. He crossed this with a shorter line at right angles, establishing his east-and-west line. Mr. Thurston, standing at the cub engineer is ...

— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock

... clapped his hat on his head, drove her up against the chimney, and holding her head between his two fists, said he knew no reason why he should not pound it into a jelly, in order to teach her to call him poltroon again. The poor woman was horribly frightened, and made perpendicular curtseys between his two fists, and all sorts of excuses. At last he let her go, more dead than alive. She had the generosity to say no syllable of this occurrence until after his death; she even allowed ...

— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... find new cover. For long distances the banks of the Pecos are nearly perpendicular, and ten to twenty feet high. At flood the swift current cuts deep holes and recesses in these banks. Prowling along the margin of the stream, Jim found one of these recesses wide enough to hold ...

— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson

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