VERTEX • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Vertex

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/vˈərtˌɛks/ Listen

noun

Vertex n. (pl. E. vertexes, L. vertices) A turning point; the principal or highest point; top; summit; crown; apex. Specifically:

(a)

(Anat.) The top, or crown, of the head.

(b)

(Astron.) The zenith, or the point of the heavens directly overhead.

(c)

(Math.) The point in any figure opposite to, and farthest from, the base; the terminating point of some particular line or lines in a figure or a curve; the top, or the point opposite the base. Note: The principal vertex of a conic section is, in the parabola, the vertex of the axis of the curve: in the ellipse, either extremity of either axis, but usually the left-hand vertex of the transverse axis; in the hyperbola, either vertex, but usually the right-hand vertex of the transverse axis.

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

Vertex of an angle (Math.), the point in which the sides of the angle meet.

Vertex of a solid, or Vertex of a surface of revolution (Math.), the point in which the axis pierces the surface.

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Etymology of 'Vertex'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Vertex" Quotes from Famous Books

... to stand opposite to C, and has impelling force applied to it, then C becomes the point of resistance, and thus counter-fractures at the cranial base occur in the neighbourhood of C. When force is applied to the cranial vertex, whilst the body is in the erect posture, the top of the cervical spine, E D C, becomes the point of resistance. Or if the body fall from a height upon its cranial vertex, then the propelling force will take effect at the junction of the spine ...

— Surgical Anatomy • Joseph Maclise

... guided along any curve ATB. When the rod has been pushed back to Q'Q, the tracer moves along the axis OX. On the frame a cone VCC' is mounted with its axis sloping so that its top edge is horizontal and parallel to TT', whilst its vertex V is opposite Q'. As the frame moves it turns the cone. A wheel W is mounted on the rod at T', or on an axis parallel to and rigidly connected with it. This wheel rests on the top edge of the cone. If now the tracer T, when pulled out through a distance y above Q, be moved ...

— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... appendix axis datum erratum focus formula genus larva medium memorandum nebula radius series species stratum terminus vertex ...

— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell

... come down to breakfast gowned in her very best morning frock, one reserved for those rare occasions when people drop in over night and sleep with them. She has, indeed, all the festive appearance of a person who expects to be called away at a second's notice into a very vertex of dissipation. ...

— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford

... met with in infants, the lesion is due to over-stretching of the plexus, and is nearly always of the Erb-Duchenne type. The injury is usually unilateral, it occurs with almost equal frequency in breech and in vertex presentations, and the left arm is more often affected than the right. The lesion is seldom recognised at birth. The first symptom noticed is tenderness in the supra-clavicular region, the child crying when this part is touched or the arm is moved. The attitude ...

— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

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