tangent line

American  

noun

1. tangent.

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Example Sentences

The steepness of the tangent line—its slope—has some important properties in physics: for instance, if you’ve got a curve that represents the position of, say, a bicycle, then the slope of the tangent line to that curve at any given point tells you how fast that bicycle is going when it reaches that spot.

From Literature

The line you get isn’t exactly the tangent line, but if the curve isn’t too bumpy, the two lines will be pretty close.

From Literature

As you reduce the distance between the points, the guess gets closer to the tangent line.

From Literature

When you try to calculate the slope of a tangent line, zero wrecks your approximation process.

From Literature

Does the slope of the tangent line have any meaning?

From Literature