subtend
/sʌbˈtɛnd/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.21 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
2
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To use an angle to delimit (mark off, enclose) part of a straight or curved line, for example an arc or the opposite side of a triangle.
Transitive verb
Example Sentences
- "A 43° angle subtends an arc of about 0.75 meters on a circle with a radius of 1 meter."
- "A hypotenuse subtends the right angle of a right triangle."
- "An arc measuring about 0.75 meters on a circle with a radius of 1 meter subtends an angle of about 43°."
- "[…] trillions of bacteria, each equally an individual, which are found in a person’s gut, his mouth, his scalp, his skin and all of the crevices and orifices that subtend from his body’s surface."
- "The points A and B on the circumference form the arc AB, which subtends the central angle θ."
Etymology
From Latin subtendere, from sub (“under”) + tendere (“to stretch, extend”), itself a semantic loan from Ancient Greek ὑποτείνω (hupoteínō, “to subtend”), from which hypotenuse also derives. See tend.