reentrant

American  

[ree-en-truhnt] / riˈɛn trənt /

Or re-entrant

adjective

1. reentering or pointing inward.

   a reentrant angle.

---

noun

1. a reentering angle or part.

2. a person or thing that reenters or returns.

   Reentrants to the engineering program must take the introductory course again.

3. Physical Geography. a prominent indentation in a coastline.

Etymology

Origin of reentrant

First recorded in 1775–85; re- + entrant

Example Sentences

Abnormalities in cardiac impulse propagation underlie lethal reentrant arrhythmias, including ventricular fibrillation.

From Science Magazine • Sep. 28, 2011

The immense size of the cave—or overhanging, reentrant cliff, whichever one chooses to call it—dwarfed the houses, so that they looked like toy houses.

From A Book-Lover's Holidays in the Open by Roosevelt, Theodore

The median portion, or that in the reentrant angle of the W, is a four-sided figure in which the triangle predominates with notched edges.

From Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 Seventeenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1895-1896, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1898, pages 519-744 by Fewkes, Jesse Walter

But, oh! my little friends of the north; my struggling, strenuous, introspective, self-analysing, autoscopic, and generally reentrant friends, who spout the 'Hue!

From The Path to Rome by Belloc, Hilaire

The trend and appearance of the reentrant side walls connecting the present entrance with the straight face of the cliff indicates that the earth in the cavern has a depth of 30 feet or more.

From Archeological Investigations Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76 by Fowke, Gerard