Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The highest point; the apex or summit: the vertex of a mountain.
- n. Anatomy The highest point of the skull.
- n. Anatomy The top of the head.
- n. Astronomy The highest point reached in the apparent motion of a celestial body.
- n. Mathematics The point at which the sides of an angle intersect.
- n. Mathematics The point on a triangle or pyramid opposite to and farthest away from its base.
- n. Mathematics A point on a polyhedron common to three or more sides.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In geometry, the point at which concurrent straights meet.
- n. The highest or principal point; apex; top; crown; summit. Specifically— In anatomy and zoology, the crown or top of the head; of man, the dome, vault, or arch of the head or skull, between the forehead and hindhead. See calvarium, sinciput, and cuts under bird, brain, cranium, and skull.
- n. In mathematics, a point of a figure most distant from the center; any convex angle of a polygon.
Wiktionary
- n. The highest point of something.
- n. anatomy The highest surface on the skull.
- n. geometry The common point of the two rays of the angle, or its equivalent structure in polyedra (meeting of edges) and higher order polytopes.
- n. mathematics A point on the curve with a local minimum or maximum of curvature.
- n. graph theory One of the elements of a graph joined or not by edges to other vertices.
- n. computer graphics A point in 3D space, usually given in terms of its Cartesian coordinates.
- n. optics The point where the surface of a lens crosses the optical axis.
- n. An interaction point.
- n. astrology The point where the prime vertical meets the ecliptic in the western hemisphere of a natal chart.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A turning point; the principal or highest point; top; summit; crown; apex.
- n. (Anat.) The top, or crown, of the head.
- n. (Astron.) The zenith, or the point of the heavens directly overhead.
- n. (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.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the point of intersection of lines or the point opposite the base of a figure
- n. the highest point (of something)
Etymologies
- Latin vertex ("top, peak"), from vertere ("to turn") (Wiktionary)
- Latin, whirlpool, crown of the head (where the hair forms a whorl), vertex, from vertere, to turn. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Thus: what we call the vertex of the Brain is really its base and what we call its base is really its vertex, it is simply a question of nomenclature.”
“Thus the interior angle at each vertex is either 90° or 270°.”
“What we call the vertex of the Brain is really its base: and what we call its base is really its vertex: it is simply a question of nomenclature.”
“The Harvard Medical School Family Health Guide, DHT promotes both the proliferation of prostate cells and hair loss, and that men who were diagnosed with prostate cancer were more likely to have had bald spots on the tops of their heads, which is referred to as vertex baldness, as opposed to those men who did not have bald spots.”
“At the vertex is a medical student named Karlanner (played by Stephen Barker Turner), a kind of emblematic conflicted "good German" - leftishly inclined, living with the Jewish girlfriend who rescued him from alcoholism.”
“The brightest star will be identified as the vertex of a right-angled triangle, of which the line from Vega to the Pole Star is the base, as shown in Fig. 91.”
“These last move more and more quickly until they reach what is called the vertex of the parabola (the point of such a path which lies nearest to the sun): projectiles, on the contrary, move more and more slowly as they approach the corresponding point of their path; and further, the comet first approaches and then recedes from the centre of attraction -- the projectile first recedes from and then approaches the attracting centre.”
“Another is the ability to separate two components called vertex shaders and fragment shaders that previously had to be linked together.”
“Another is a feature DirectX programmers already enjoy, the ability to separate two components called vertex shaders and fragment shaders that previously had to be linked together.”
“For this parabola, a = -10 so it opens down and the vertex is the maximum point.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘vertex’.
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SCIE - graph theory
morphism, preorder, diagram, vector, quiver, functor, ancestor, successor, parent, simple, source, embedding and 423 more...
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SCIE - neurology
abducens.....draw..., ablation.....carr..., acetylcholine......., adrenalin.....nea..., afferent.....to c..., agnosia.....no kn..., alar.....wing-like, alexia.....no words, alveus.....canal, amacrine.....no l..., ambidextrous........, ambiguus.....doub... and 701 more...
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Don't Mess With Texas
texas, Texas, Tex, Tejas, Dallas, that's right, you..., Ann Richards, Molly Ivins, Barbara Jordan, Houston, El Paso, San Angelo and 83 more...
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Graph Theory Terminology
assortativity, sociogram, circuit, path, eigenvector, matrix, network, edge, vertex, connected, bipartite, hypergraph and 5 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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X Marks the Spot
Words ending in "x" (except proper nouns and trademarks)
ax, ex, ox, soapbox, smallpox, six, sex, sax, rex, pressbox, climax, chickenpox and 208 more...
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Physical anthropology
acclimatization, adriatic, aegyptid, aeta, aethiopid, africoid, ainuid, aistin, alae, alare, albino, allele and 202 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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Carlos' Words
monstropolous, absquatulate
pinguid, triffid, calque, refulgent, monstropolous, Seanchaí, clinquant, Chryselephantine ..., peavey, milium, swage, Burtillon, Burtil... and 224 more...
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NTDW1
template, modal, sublingual, tandem, polycentric, septuagenarian, token, irrevocable, denotive, augural, aberrant, phlebotomy and 1188 more...
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Fun
harangue, quixotic, persnickety, lachrymose, kerfuffle, zephyr, chthonic, vixen, fiend, scoundrel, cricket, belfry and 193 more...
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ash
ash
abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abide, abject, abjure and 4874 more...
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_mark's list
Words I like!
( personal list, favorite words, randomness )psy, nanobot, success, smack, vibration, microcosmic, springgraph, marksmanship, estranged, homoerotic, flex, fiasco and 1696 more...
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Turning and Twisting Tours
words in the nature of double spirals
swift, swerve, swirl, swivel, swarm, swag, swank, swoop, swinge, swarf, spire, esparto and 361 more...
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Cranial landmarks
So that I can call "work" the time I spend on Wordie.
alare, alveolon, auriculare, basion, bregma, candylion, dacryon, ectoconchion, ectomolare, euryon, frontomalare temp..., frontotemporale and 27 more...
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Regular polyhedra
This class consists of the five Platonic solids, (the only regular convex polyhedra), and the four Kepler-Poinsot (regular starry) polyhedra.
polyhedron, platonic solid, cube, octahedron, hexahedron, tetrahedron, dodecahedron, icosahedron, dual polyhedra, symmetry groups, schläfli symbol, face and 18 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for vertex.
fbharjo a virtual texan?? Dec 11, 2010