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

This is what is meant by the stars not having, like the planets, a parallax; that is, the earths' orbit, as seen from them, does not subtend a measurable angle.

From An Expository Outline of the "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation" With a Notice of the Author's "Explanations:" A Sequel to the Vestiges by Anonymous

Angles are distinguished by the number of degrees they subtend, to 360°, or the whole circumference of a circle.

From The Sailor's Word-Book An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms, including Some More Especially Military and Scientific, but Useful to Seamen; as well as Archaisms of Early Voyagers, etc. by Belcher, Edward, Sir

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