Search the Dictionary

Webster’s Dictionary (1828)

98,828 entries. Headwords are matched first, then definition text.

12 words match “VECTOR”

VECTOR n. 2 definitions

Same as Radius vector.

A term made up of the two parts

RADIUS VECTOR n. 2 definitions

A straight line (or the length of such line) connecting any point, as of a curve, with a fixed point, or pole, round which the straight line turns, and to which it serves to refer the successive points of a curve, in a system of polar coördinates. See Coördinate, n.

Something added to a coat of arms, as a mark of honor; -- opposed to abatement. Vector addition (Geom.), that kind of addition of two lines, or vectors, AB and BC, by which their sum is regarded as the line, or vector, AC.

In a curve referred to polar coördinates, any point for which the radius vector is a maximum or minimum.

CONSERVATION n.

f its conservation. Burke. Conservation of areas (Astron.), the principle that the radius vector drawn from a planet to the sun sweeps over equal areas in equal times. -- Conservation of energy, or Conservation of force (Mech.), the principle that the total energy of any material system is a quantity which can neither…

HYPERBOLIC; HYPERBOLICAL a.

m the pole to the generating point varies inversely as the angle swept over by the radius vector.

to the sun is an ellipse, the sun being in one of the foci. (2) The areas swept over by a vector drawn from the sun to a planet are proportioned to the times of describing them. (3) The squares of the times of revolution of two planets are in the ratio of the cubes of their mean distances. -- Law binding, a plain styl…

A spiral whose polar equation is r2th = a; that is, a curve the square of whose radius vector varies inversely as the angle which the radius vector makes with a given line.

The quotient of two vectors, or of two directed right lines in space, considered as depending on four geometrical elements, and as expressible by an algebraic symbol of quadrinomial form.

rnion analysis, a quantity that has magnitude, but not direction; -- distinguished from a vector, which has both magnitude and direction.

The ratio of one vector to another in length, no regard being had to the direction of the two vectors; -- so called because considered as a stretching factor in changing one vector into another. See Versor.