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

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

The lesser Congo delta is bounded north by the Banana or Malela stream, whose lower fork is "Pirates' Creek;" and south by the mangrove-clad drains, which subtend the main line: the base measures 12-15 miles.

From Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 by Burton, Richard Francis, Sir

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