curve : Idioms & Phrases

• a curve exhibiting the variations of pressure and volume of a fluid when it expands without either receiving or giving out heat.

Webster 1913

• a curve such that the equation which expresses the relation between the coördinates of its points involves only the ordinary operations of algebra; opposed to a transcendental curve.

Webster 1913

• a class of curves of the fourth degree which have certain peculiar relations to circles; sometimes called bicircular quartics.

Webster 1913

• (Geom.), a straight line which bisects a system of parallel chords of a curve; called a principal axis, when cutting them at right angles, in which case it divides the curve into two symmetrical portions, as in the parabola, which has one such axis, the ellipse, which has two, or the circle, which has an infinite number. The two axes of the ellipse are the major axis and the minor axis, and the two axes of the hyperbola are the transverse axis and the conjugate axis.

Webster 1913

• noun a symmetrical curve representing the normal distribution
  bell-shaped curve; Gaussian shape; Gaussian curve.
  

WordNet

• noun a curve or bend in the road that you cannot see around as you are driving
  blind bend.
  

WordNet

• (Optics), a curve to which the ray of light, reflected or refracted by another curve, are tangents, the reflecting or refracting curve and the luminous point being in one plane.

Webster 1913

• (Geom.) (a) A point such that every line drawn through the point and terminated by the curve or surface is bisected at the point. (b) The fixed point of reference in polar coördinates. See Coördinates.

Webster 1913

• (Geom.), the center of that circle which has at any given point of the curve closer contact with the curve than has any other circle whatever. See Circle.

Webster 1913

• noun (electronics) graph showing how a particular characteristic of a device varies with other parameters
  characterisic function.
  

WordNet

• (Math.), the kind of a curve as expressed by the number of tangents that can be drawn from any point to the curve. A circle is of the second class.

Webster 1913

• noun a curve (such as a circle) having no endpoints
  

WordNet

• noun a pitch of a baseball that is thrown with spin so that its path curves as it approaches the batter
  breaking ball; curve; bender.
  

WordNet

• . See Brachystochrone.

Webster 1913

• (Math.), the process of determining the shape, location, singular points, and other perculiarities of a curve from its equation.

Webster 1913

• noun the trace of a point whose direction of motion changes
  curve.
  

WordNet

• (Geom.), the amount by which the number of double points on a curve is short of the maximum for curves of the same degree.

Webster 1913

• (Geom.), the number which expresses the degree of the equation of the curve or surface in rectilinear coördinates. A straight line will, in general, meet the curve or surface in a number of points equal to the degree of the curve or surface and no more.

Webster 1913

• (Geom.), any line or surface which bisects a system of parallel chords drawn in a curve or surface.

Webster 1913

• (Geom.), a Cartesian oval. See under Cartesian.

Webster 1913

• . (a) (Geom.) The curve made by a thin elastic rod fixed horizontally at one end and loaded at the other. (b) (Mech.) The figure assumed by the longitudinal axis of an originally straight bar under any system of bending forces. Rankine.

Webster 1913

• adding half a mile for each 360 degrees of curvature.

Webster 1913

• (Math.), an equation which expresses the relation between the coördinates of every point in the curve.

Webster 1913

• a curve the coördinates of which show the relation between the pressure and volume of expanding gas or vapor; esp. (Steam engine), that part of an indicator diagram which shows the declining pressure of the steam as it expands in the cylinder.

Webster 1913

• noun a graph of an exponential function
  

WordNet

• a curve whose nature is defined by means of an exponential equation.

Webster 1913

• (Geom.), a group of curves or surfaces derived from a single equation.

Webster 1913

• . (Geom.) Same as Folium.

Webster 1913

• noun (electronics) a graph of frequency response with signal amplitude or gain plotted against frequency
  frequency-response characteristic.
  

WordNet

• . Same as Catenary.

Webster 1913

• noun a symmetrical curve representing the normal distribution
  bell-shaped curve; Gaussian shape; Gaussian curve.
  

WordNet

• the shortest line that can be drawn between two points on the elipsoidal surface of the earth; a curve drawn on any given surface so that the osculating plane of the curve at every point shall contain the normal to the surface; the minimum line that can be drawn on any surface between any two points.

Webster 1913

• . Same as Algebraic curve; so called because their different points may be constructed by the operations of elementary geometry.

Webster 1913

• (Geom.), the equation which expresses the relation which the length of a curve, measured from a given point of it, to a movable point, has to the angle which the tangent to the curve at the movable point makes with a fixed line.

Webster 1913

• a pair of lines or curves exhibiting, on a diagram of energy, the law of variation of the pressure and density of a fluid, the one during the lowering, and the other during the raising, of its temperature, when the quantity of heat given out by the fluid during any given stage of the one process is equal to the quantity received during the corresponding stage of the other. Such lines are said to be isodiabatic with respect to each other. Compare Adiabatic.

Webster 1913

• . (Geom.) See Acnode.

Webster 1913

• noun a closed curve that does not intersect itself
  Jordan curve.
  

WordNet

• curves produced by machinery, or a combination of motions, as distinguished from mathematical curves.

Webster 1913

• noun a graph purporting to show the relation between tax rates and government income; income increases as tax rates increase up to an optimum beyond which income declines
  

WordNet

• noun a graph showing the rate of learning (especially a graph showing the amount recalled as a function of the number of attempts to recall)
  

WordNet

• (Math.), a curve which, referred to a system of rectangular coördinate axes, is such that the ordinate of any point will be the logarithm of its abscissa.

Webster 1913

• (Geom.), a line on the surface of a sphere, which always makes an equal angle with every meridian; the rhumb line. It is the line on which a ship sails when her course is always in the direction of one and the same point of the compass.

Webster 1913

• curves indicating lines of magnetic force, as in the arrangement of iron filings between the poles of a powerful magnet.

Webster 1913

• (Physiol.), contraction curve of a muscle; a myogram; the curve inscribed, upon a prepared surface, by means of a myograph when acted upon by a contracting muscle. The character of the curve represents the extent of the contraction.

Webster 1913

• noun a symmetrical curve representing the normal distribution
  bell-shaped curve; Gaussian shape; Gaussian curve.
  

WordNet

• (Geom.), the description of a curve on a plane by means of instruments. Brande & C.

Webster 1913

• (Geom.), the circle which touches the curve at some point in the curve, and close to the point more nearly coincides with the curve than any other circle. This circle is used as a measure of the curvature of the curve at the point, and hence is called circle of curvature.

Webster 1913

• (Math.), a curve having the property that, when its plane is placed vertically, a body descending along it, by the force of gravity, will approach to, or recede from, a fixed point or center, by equal distances in equal times; called also a paracentric.

Webster 1913

• (Geom.), the curve or surface which is the locus of the feet of perpendiculars let fall from a fixed point upon the straight lines tangent to a given curve, or upon the planes tangent to a given surface.

Webster 1913

• . See under Chart and Curve.

Webster 1913

• (Geom.), a curve such that when a plane passes through three points of the curve, it passes through all the other points of the curve. Any other curve is called a curve of double curvature, or a twisted curve.

Webster 1913

• noun a smooth curve fitted to the set of paired data in regression analysis; for linear regression the curve is a straight line
  regression line.
  

WordNet

• (Railways), a curve like the letter S, formed of two curves bending in opposite directions.

Webster 1913

• noun a closed curve that does not intersect itself
  Jordan curve.
  

WordNet

• noun the curve of y=sin x
  sinusoid.
  

WordNet

• (Math.), a point at which the curve possesses some peculiar properties not possessed by other points of the curve, as a cusp point, or a multiple point.

Webster 1913

• (Geom.), a curve of double curvature, or a twisted curve. See Plane curve, under Curve.

Webster 1913

• (Math.), the bending of a curve towards or from a straight line.

Webster 1913

• (Geom.), to produce on the plane an equivalent surface, as if by rolling the curved surface so that all parts shall successively touch the plane.

Webster 1913

• (Math.), a curve in which one ordinate is a transcendental function of the other.

Webster 1913

• a curve one of whose coördinates is a trigonometric function of the other.

Webster 1913

• (Geom.), a curve of double curvature. See Plane curve, under Curve.

Webster 1913

• (Math.), the point in which the axis of the curve intersects it.

Webster 1913