Dictionary.com
Thesaurus.com

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

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

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

Our work so far has only dealt with parabolas that open up or down.

From Textbooks ● Sep. 23, 2020

Let’s find the y-intercepts of the two parabolas shown in Figure 9.4.

From Textbooks ● May 6, 2020

This was the beginning of the discipline of projective geometry, where mathematicians look at the shadows and projections of geometric figures to uncover hidden truths even more powerful than the equivalence of parabolas and ellipses.

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