catenary

Its form is that of the catenary curve, the most perfect shape for an arch, and the only one that requires no buttressing from the side.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 27, 2026

Without the structural principles behind catenary curves, there would be no Gothic cathedrals or Renaissance domes — nor, for that matter, any lacy spiderwebs.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 17, 2025

Sound Transit’s resident engineer denied most of a $3.8 million claim Walsh filed on Clackamas, Ore.-based Liberty’s behalf regarding 107 catenary poles, affected by utilities, boulders, timbers and concrete.

From Seattle Times ● Apr. 22, 2023

Replacement of track infrastructure, and the electric catenary poles and wires and the signal systems, is work that goes on every year.

From Washington Post ● Sep. 9, 2021

In his advocacy of placing steel to simulate a catenary curve, with end anchorage, the author is more nearly correct than in other issues he makes.

From Some Mooted Questions in Reinforced Concrete Design American Society of Civil Engineers, Transactions, Paper No. 1169, Volume LXX, Dec. 1910 by Edward Godfrey

Power is often still carried on lines that hang in graceful catenaries of various depths from poles that lean left or right randomly but rarely stand straight.

From New York Times ● Nov. 16, 2012

A relief sculpture by Charles Biederman or the prodigious steel catenaries of Othmar H. Ammann's design for the George Washington Bridge?

From Time Magazine Archive

It is true, they will not be exact catenaries, but they will depart very little from it; much less than portions of circles will.

From Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 2 by Thomas Jefferson Randolph

Every catenary lying between them has its directrix higher, and every catenary lying beyond them has its directrix lower than that of the two catenaries.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 5, Slice 3 "Capefigue" to "Carneades" by Various

Now let us consider the surfaces of revolution formed by this system of catenaries revolving about the directrix of the two catenaries of equal tension.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 5, Slice 3 "Capefigue" to "Carneades" by Various