DICT.TW Dictionary Taiwan

 Con·ic Con·ic·al, a.
 1. Having the form of, or resembling, a geometrical cone; round and tapering to a point, or gradually lessening in circumference; as, a conic or conical figure; a conical vessel.
 2. Of or pertaining to a cone; as, conic sections.
 Conic section Geom., a curved line formed by the intersection of the surface of a right cone and a plane. The conic sections are the parabola, ellipse, and hyperbola. The right lines and the circle which result from certain positions of the plane are sometimes, though not generally included.
 Conic sections, that branch of geometry which treats of the parabola, ellipse, and hyperbola.
 Conical pendulum. See Pendulum.
 Conical projection, a method of delineating the surface of a sphere upon a plane surface as if projected upon the surface of a cone; -- much used by makers of maps in Europe.
 Conical surface Geom., a surface described by a right line moving along any curve and always passing through a fixed point that is not in the plane of that curve.
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 El·lipse n.
 1. Geom. An oval or oblong figure, bounded by a regular curve, which corresponds to an oblique projection of a circle, or an oblique section of a cone through its opposite sides. The greatest diameter of the ellipse is the major axis, and the least diameter is the minor axis. See Conic section, under Conic, and cf. Focus.
 2. Gram. Omission. See Ellipsis.
 3. The elliptical orbit of a planet.
 The Sun flies forward to his brother Sun;
 The dark Earth follows wheeled in her ellipse.   --Tennyson.
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 conic section
      n : (geometry) a curve generated by the intersection of a plane
          and a circular cone [syn: conic]