Word.ws English Dictionary

tractrix

tractrix noun: a curve that satisfies the following property: that segment of the tangent line that lies between the point of tangency and a fixed line has length independent of the point of tangency chosen.

tractrix: a curve that satisfies the following property: that segment of the tangent line that lies between...
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Noun

tractrix (plural tractrices)

  1. A curve that satisfies the following property: that segment of the tangent line that lies between the point of tangency and a fixed line has length independent of the point of tangency chosen.

Forms of tractrix

pluraltractrices

Origin of tractrix

Formed after tractor, as if from a Latin *tractrīx (from trahō (“to pull”) + -trīx).

Words formed from tractrix

Questions about tractrix

What does tractrix mean?
Tractrix means a curve that satisfies the following property: that segment of the tangent line that lies between the point of tangency and a fixed line has length independent of the point of tangency chosen.
What part of speech is tractrix?
Tractrix is a noun.
What is the plural of tractrix?
The plural of tractrix is tractrices.

Words near tractrix in the dictionary

  1. tractotomies
  2. tractotomy
  3. tractrices
  4. tractricoid
  5. tractricoids
  6. tractrix
  7. tractroid
  8. tractroids
  9. tracts
  10. tractus
  11. tractuses

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tractrix (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-tractrix.wav.

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