subtend

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

The line with letters that subtend 5 minutes of an arc from 20 feet represents the smallest letters that a person with normal acuity should be able to read at that distance.

From Textbooks • Jun. 19, 2013

The world's full of highly pertinent male-female situations whose fictional exploration does subtend a viable sociological function�and yet this is the best you can come up with.

From Time Magazine Archive

We conclude that a double line cannot be fairly resolved unless its components subtend an angle exceeding that subtended by the wave-length of light at a distance equal to the horizontal aperture.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 4 "Diameter" to "Dinarchus" by Various

The parallax of the nearest star is only one second, the whole lenticular mass of light which surrounds our sun would therefore only subtend an angle of a single second at the nearest fixed star.

From Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence by Bassnett, Thomas

He did not define "subtend," supposing such words to be already understood.

From The Teaching of Geometry by Smith, David Eugene