Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The perpendicular distance from the center of a regular polygon to any of its sides.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In geometry, a perpendicular let fall from the center of a regular polygon upon one of its sides.
  • noun In pharmaceutics, the more or less completely insoluble brownish substance deposited when vegetable infusions, decoctions, tinctures, etc., are subjected to prolonged evaporation by heat with access of air. The substance or substances out of which it is in this way formed constitute the so-called extractive.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Math.) The perpendicular from the center to one of the sides of a regular polygon.
  • noun A deposit formed in a liquid extract of a vegetable substance by exposure to the air.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun geometry The perpendicular distance from the center of a circle to a chord of the same circle.
  • noun geometry The distance from the center of a regular polygon perpendicular to one of its sides (a special case of the above).

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[apo– + Greek thema, something laid down; see theme.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Greek ἀπόθεμα (apothema, "deposit"), from ἀπό (apo, "off, away") + θέμα (thema, "that which is laid down").

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Examples

  • He previously gained points to qualify for the semifinal round by correctly spelling "apothem" and "caponata."

    Boulder Daily Camera Most Viewed 2010

  • When gm is final drop the silent g: apothem, diagram, flem.

    Chapter 8. American Spelling. 5. Simplified Spelling Henry Louis 1921

  • Further, as M. M.urice Girard has pointed out, the apothem of the cell varies among different races of bees, so that the standard would alter from hive to hive, according to the species of bee that inhabited it.

    The Life of the Bee Maurice Maeterlinck 1905

  • The slant height or apothem is 5 / 3 or 1.666 ... times the semi-base.

    Recently Uploaded Slideshows 2009

  • How do you find the area of an equilateral traingle with a radius of 12 and an apothem of 6?

    Yahoo! Answers: Latest Questions 2009

  • Mathematical pyramids • A pyramid in which the apothem (slant height along the bisector of a face) is equal to φ times the semi-base (half the base width) is sometimes called a golden pyramid.

    Recently Uploaded Slideshows 2009

  • How do you find the area of an equilateral traingle with a radius of 12 and an apothem of 6?

    Yahoo! Answers: Latest Questions 2009

  • The isoceles triangle that is the face of such a pyramid can be constructed from the two halves of a diagonally split golden rectangle (of size semi-base by apothem), joining the medium-length edges to make the apothem.

    Recently Uploaded Slideshows 2009

  • • A regular square pyramid is determined by its medial right triangle, whose edges are the pyramid's apothem (a), semi-base (b), and height (h); the face inclination angle is also marked.

    Recently Uploaded Slideshows 2009

  • · new shapes: regular polygon by center, vertex or apothem, and vertex number

    Softpedia - Windows - All 2010

Comments

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  • (n): In geometry, a perpendicular from the center of a regular polygon to a side. NOT to be confused with apothegm.

    January 15, 2009