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 thecenter of acircle to achord 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
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hernesheir commented on the word apothem
(n): In geometry, a perpendicular from the center of a regular polygon to a side. NOT to be confused with apothegm.
January 15, 2009