cosine

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   in a right triangle, the ratio of the side adjacent to an angle to the hypotenuse; more generally, the corresponding trigonometric function

   The cosine of sixty degrees is one half.

A shortening of New Latin complementi sinus ("sine of the complement"), later analyzed as co- + sine. French mathematicians abbreviated the phrase as cosinus, from which English cosine developed.

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