Word Direct Answers

What does "curve" mean?

Curve: A bending without angles; that wcich is bent; a flexure; as, a curve in a railway or canal.

Additional senses

  1. 2.(Geom.) A line described according to some low, and having no finite portion of it a straight line. Axis of a curve. See under Axis. -- Curve of quickest descent. See Brachystochrone. -- Curve tracing (Math.), the process of determining the shape, location, singular points, and other perculiarities of a curve from its equation. -- Plane curve (Geom.), a curve such that when a plane passes through three points of the curve, it passes through all the other points of the curve. Any other curve is called a curve of double curvature, or a twisted curve.
  2. 3.To bend; to crook; as, to curve a line; to curve a pipe; to cause to swerve from a straight course; as, to curve a ball in pitching it.
  3. 4.To bend or turn gradually from a given direction; as, the road curves to the right.

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