Word.ws English Dictionary

orthoteny

orthoteny noun: the study of straight lines, especially in regards to the flight paths that UFOs tend to follow.

Noun

orthoteny (countable and uncountable, plural orthotenies)

  1. The study of straight lines, especially in regards to the flight paths that UFOs tend to follow.
    • […] believes that he had discovered a new principle called orthoteny, according to which saucer-sightings of any given short period tend, far more often than chance would permit, form plottable straight lines of 3 or more points.1951, Anthony Boucher, J. Francis McComas, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, volume 16, Mercury Press, Incorporated, page 86
    • […] of flying saucer reports in France in 1954 supporting the author's theory of "orthoteny," i.e., the fact that he can connect the points at which flying saucers appeared each day with a series of straight lines radiating out from a central point.1958, Junior Libraries, volume 5, R.R. Bowker., page 117

Forms of orthoteny

pluralorthotenies

Origin of orthoteny

Borrowed from French orthoténie.

Questions about orthoteny

What does orthoteny mean?
Orthoteny means the study of straight lines, especially in regards to the flight paths that UFOs tend to follow.
What part of speech is orthoteny?
Orthoteny is a noun.
What is the plural of orthoteny?
The plural of orthoteny is orthotenies.

Words near orthoteny in the dictionary

  1. orthoteliine
  2. orthoteliines
  3. orthotellurate
  4. orthotellurates
  5. orthotenies
  6. orthoteny
  7. orthotetrahedra
  8. orthotetrahedral
  9. orthotetrahedron
  10. orthothecid
  11. orthothecids

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: orthoteny (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “orthoteny.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/orthoteny. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.