cosecant
Americannoun
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(in a right triangle) the ratio of the hypotenuse to the side opposite a given angle.
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the secant of the complement, or the reciprocal of the sine, of a given angle or arc. csc
noun
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The ratio of the length of the hypotenuse in a right triangle to the length of the side opposite an acute angle. The cosecant is the inverse of the sine.
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The reciprocal of the ordinate of the endpoint of an arc of a unit circle centered at the origin of a Cartesian coordinate system, the arc being of length x and measured counterclockwise from the point (1, 0) if x is positive or clockwise if x is negative.
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A function of a number x, equal to the cosecant of an angle whose measure in radians is equal to x.
Etymology
Origin of cosecant
First recorded in 1700–10, cosecant is from the New Latin word cosecant- (stem of cosecāns ). See co-, secant
Vocabulary lists containing cosecant
Trigonometry
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Precalculus
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Example Sentences
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The sine, cosine, secant, and cosecant functions have period 2π.
From Textbooks ● Mar. 30, 2016
The secant and cosecant are both periodic functions with a period of gives a shifted, compressed, and/or stretched secant function graph.
From Textbooks ● Feb. 13, 2015
Where the graph of the sine function increases, the graph of the cosecant function decreases.
From Textbooks ● Feb. 13, 2015
Where the graph of the sine function decreases, the graph of the cosecant function increases.
From Textbooks ● Feb. 13, 2015
That is, The graph of cosecant, which is shown in Figure 7, is similar to the graph of secant.
From Textbooks ● Feb. 13, 2015
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
