cosecant

American  

[koh-see-kuhnt, -kant] / koʊˈsi kənt, -kænt /

noun

Trigonometry.

1. (in a right triangle) the ratio of the hypotenuse to the side opposite a given angle.

2. the secant of the complement, or the reciprocal of the sine, of a given angle or arc. csc

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cosecant British  

/ kəʊˈsiːkənt /

noun

1.  cosec.  (of an angle) a trigonometric function that in a right-angled triangle is the ratio of the length of the hypotenuse to that of the opposite side; the reciprocal of sine

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cosecant Scientific  

/ kō-sē′kănt′ /

1. The ratio of the length of the hypotenuse in a right triangle to the length of the side opposite an acute angle. The cosecant is the inverse of the sine.

2. The reciprocal of the ordinate of the endpoint of an arc of a unit circle centered at the origin of a Cartesian coordinate system, the arc being of length x and measured counterclockwise from the point (1, 0) if x is positive or clockwise if x is negative.

3. A function of a number x, equal to the cosecant of an angle whose measure in radians is equal to x.

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Etymology

Origin of cosecant

First recorded in 1700–10, cosecant is from the New Latin word cosecant- (stem of cosecāns ). See co-, secant

Example Sentences

The secant is the reciprocal of the cosine function, the cotangent is the reciprocal of the tangent function, and the cosecant is the reciprocal of the sine function.

From Textbooks • Feb. 13, 2015

Cosine and secant are even; sine, tangent, cosecant, and cotangent are odd.

From Textbooks • Feb. 13, 2015

Notice how the graph of the transformed cosecant relates to the graph of shown as the orange dashed wave.

From Textbooks • Feb. 13, 2015

For the four trigonometric functions, sine, cosine, cosecant and secant, a revolution of one circle, or will result in the same outputs for these functions.

From Textbooks • Feb. 13, 2015

The secant, cotangent, and cosecant are all reciprocals of other functions.

From Textbooks • Feb. 13, 2015