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parabola

[puh-rab-uh-luh]

noun Geometry.

a plane curve formed by the intersection of a right circular cone with a plane parallel to a generator of the cone; the set of points in a plane that are equidistant from a fixed line and a fixed point in the same plane or in a parallel plane. Equation: y² = 2px or x² = 2py.

Origin:
1570–80; < Neo-Latin < Greek parabolḗ an application. See parable

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Parabola is always a great word to know.

So is slumgullion. Does it mean:

a stew of meat, vegetables, potatoes, etc.

a children's mummer's parade, as on the Fourth of July, with prizes for the best costumes.

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Example Sentences

Edging the shape is a parabola of black lined with.

Scenarios are best kept for the theatre, postures for the gym, parameters for the parabola.

The low parabola trajectory gave us too much velocity for the parachutes to deploy correctly.

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Collins

World English Dictionary

parabola (pəˈræbələ)

—n
	a conic section formed by the intersection of a cone by a plane parallel to its side. Standard equation: y² = 4ax, where 2a is the distance between focus and directrix

[C16: via New Latin from Greek parabolē a setting alongside; see parable]

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

parabola

1570s, from Gk. parabole "parabola, application" (see parable), so called by Apollonius of Perga c.210 B.C.E. because it is produced by "application" of a given area to a given straight line. It had a different sense in Pythagorean geometry. Related: Parabolic.

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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American Heritage

Science Dictionary

parabola

(pə-rāb'ə-lə) Pronunciation Key

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The curve formed by the set of points in a plane that are all equally distant from both a given line (called the directrix) and a given point (called the focus) that is not on the line.

American Heritage

Cultural Dictionary

parabola [(puh-rab-uh-luh)]

A geometrical shape (see geometry) consisting of a single bend and two lines going off to an infinite distance.

Note: An object that is propelled away from the Earth and then drawn back by gravity, such as a fly ball in baseball, follows a path shaped like a parabola.

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Related Words

conic section directrix focus

latus rectum para- parabolize

Matching Quote

"A tragic or comic plot is not a straight line: it is a parabola following the shapes of the mouths on the conventional masks. Comedy has a U-shaped plot, with the action sinking into deep and often potentially tragic complications, and then suddenly turning upward into a happy ending. Tragedy has an inverted U, with the action rising in crisis to a peripety and then plunging downward to a catastrophe through a series of recognitions, usually of the inevitable consequences of previous acts. But in both cases what is recognized is seldom anything new; it is something which has been there all along, and which, by its reappearance or manifestation, brings the end into line with the beginning."

-Northrop Frye

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parabola

pa·rab·o·la