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

“I see the stations, the empty parking spaces, the catenary wires that power the trains, and think surely we should put it to use,” Sound Transit board member Claudia Balducci, of Bellevue, said last week.

From Seattle Times ● Nov. 9, 2022

And then there’s also the basic infrastructure: the track, signal systems, electric catenary systems that also are beyond their useful life in many cases.

From Washington Post ● Sep. 9, 2021

To eliminate any possibility of the trolley wire breaking, a strong steel cable, called a catenary, was slung just above the trolley wire.

From Tom Swift and His Electric Locomotive, or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails by Victor [pseud.] Appleton

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

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

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

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