ELLIPTICAL • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Elliptical

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/ɪlˈɪptɪkəl/ Listen

adjective

Elliptical, Elliptic adj.

Of or pertaining to an ellipse; having the form of an ellipse; oblong, with rounded ends. "The planets move in elliptic orbits." "The billiard sharp who any one catches, His doom's extremely hard He's made to dwell In a dungeon cell On a spot that's always barred. And there he plays extravagant matches In fitless finger-stalls On a cloth untrue With a twisted cue And elliptical billiard balls!"

Having a part omitted; as, an elliptical phrase.

Leaving out information essential to comprehension; so concise as to be difficult to understand; obscure or ambiguous; of speech or writing; as, an elliptical comment.

Elliptic chuck. See under Chuck.

Elliptic compasses, an instrument arranged for drawing ellipses.

Elliptic function. (Math.) See Function.

Elliptic integral. (Math.) See Integral.

Elliptic polarization. See under Polarization.

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Etymology of 'Elliptical'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Elliptical" Quotes from Famous Books

... fortunate valley, in about fifty-two hours. We then ascended, for about three miles, with far fatigue than I formerly experienced in climbing the Catskill mountains of my native State, and found ourselves on the summit of an extensive ridge, which formed the margin of a vast elliptical basin, the bottom of which presented a most beautiful landscape. The whole surface was like a garden, interspersed with patches of wood, clumps of trees, and houses standing singly or in groupes. A lake, about a mile across, ...

— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker

... The elliptical basin in which Denver is built, sloping north and east, gives it a picturesque and extended view; the mountains losing themselves in one direction in the now historic "Black Hills," and in the other merging into ...

— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms

... Raggles was a poet. He was called a tramp; but that was only an elliptical way of saying that he was a philosopher, an artist, a traveller, a naturalist and a discoverer. But most of all he was a poet. In all his life he never wrote a line of verse; he lived his poetry. His Odyssey would have been a Limerick, had it been written. But, to linger with ...

— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry

... the most brilliant display of meteors in two distinct groups, or orbits. Those of August come from a point in the constellation of Perseus and those in November from a point in the constellation Leo. They are believed to fill two distinct orbits or rings making an elliptical orbit round the sun. In such orbits, comets are believed by astronomers to be formed by a concentrated swarm of incandescent meteorites rendered luminous by collisions. But this hypothesis of innumerable collisions ...

— Buchanan's Journal of Man, January 1888 - Volume 1, Number 12 • Various

... of the valley would suggest the existence of the grand elliptical crater of some extinct volcano. But instead of the black sulphuric scoria, that you might expect to see strewed over its base, you behold a verdant landscape of smiling loveliness, park-like plains interposed with groves and copses, here and there a mound of rock-work, as if ...

— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid

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