Word of the Day:
abscissa
What It Means
The first of the two terms by which a point is referred to, in a system of fixed rectilinear coordinate (Cartesian coordinate) axes.
The horizontal line representing an axis of a Cartesian coordinate system, on which the abscissa (sense above) is shown.
The point (3,2) has 3 as its abscissa and 2 as its ordinate.
Did You Know?
By ellipsis from Latin [linea] abscissa, feminine of abscissus, perfect passive participle of abscindō (“cut off”). See abscind.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: abscissa (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the word and reformatted its meaning, examples and origin.
Cite this entry: “abscissa.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/abscissa. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.