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parabolas

  • plural
    of parabola.
    parabola
    noun
    a plane curve formed by the intersection of a right circular cone with a plane parallel to a generator of the cone; the set of points in a plane that are equidistant from a fixed line and a fixed point in the same plane or in a parallel plane. Equation: y 2 = 2 px or x 2 = 2 py.

Example Sentences

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This was not the barefoot frolic I knew from picnics, not the game of lazy parabolas.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2025

The 10,523-seat arena opened in 1964 as an all-concrete structure built around two giant parabolas.

From Seattle Times ● Mar. 3, 2023

The last row of the table shows us when the parabolas never intersect the x-axis.

From Textbooks ● May 6, 2020

The graphs show what the parabolas look like when they to the left or to the right.

From Textbooks ● May 6, 2020

In later works Archimedes figured out the volumes of parabolas and circles, rotated around a line, which any math student knows are early homework problems in a calculus course.

From "Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea" by Charles Seife