What's the difference between point and secant?

Point


Definition:

  • (v. t. & i.) To appoint.
  • (n.) That which pricks or pierces; the sharp end of anything, esp. the sharp end of a piercing instrument, as a needle or a pin.
  • (n.) An instrument which pricks or pierces, as a sort of needle used by engravers, etchers, lace workers, and others; also, a pointed cutting tool, as a stone cutter's point; -- called also pointer.
  • (n.) Anything which tapers to a sharp, well-defined termination. Specifically: A small promontory or cape; a tract of land extending into the water beyond the common shore line.
  • (n.) The mark made by the end of a sharp, piercing instrument, as a needle; a prick.
  • (n.) An indefinitely small space; a mere spot indicated or supposed. Specifically: (Geom.) That which has neither parts nor magnitude; that which has position, but has neither length, breadth, nor thickness, -- sometimes conceived of as the limit of a line; that by the motion of which a line is conceived to be produced.
  • (n.) An indivisible portion of time; a moment; an instant; hence, the verge.
  • (n.) A mark of punctuation; a character used to mark the divisions of a composition, or the pauses to be observed in reading, or to point off groups of figures, etc.; a stop, as a comma, a semicolon, and esp. a period; hence, figuratively, an end, or conclusion.
  • (n.) Whatever serves to mark progress, rank, or relative position, or to indicate a transition from one state or position to another, degree; step; stage; hence, position or condition attained; as, a point of elevation, or of depression; the stock fell off five points; he won by tenpoints.
  • (n.) That which arrests attention, or indicates qualities or character; a salient feature; a characteristic; a peculiarity; hence, a particular; an item; a detail; as, the good or bad points of a man, a horse, a book, a story, etc.
  • (n.) Hence, the most prominent or important feature, as of an argument, discourse, etc.; the essential matter; esp., the proposition to be established; as, the point of an anecdote.
  • (n.) A small matter; a trifle; a least consideration; a punctilio.
  • (n.) A dot or mark used to designate certain tones or time
  • (n.) A dot or mark distinguishing or characterizing certain tones or styles; as, points of perfection, of augmentation, etc.; hence, a note; a tune.
  • (n.) A dot placed at the right hand of a note, to raise its value, or prolong its time, by one half, as to make a whole note equal to three half notes, a half note equal to three quarter notes.
  • (n.) A fixed conventional place for reference, or zero of reckoning, in the heavens, usually the intersection of two or more great circles of the sphere, and named specifically in each case according to the position intended; as, the equinoctial points; the solstitial points; the nodal points; vertical points, etc. See Equinoctial Nodal.
  • (n.) One of the several different parts of the escutcheon. See Escutcheon.
  • (n.) One of the points of the compass (see Points of the compass, below); also, the difference between two points of the compass; as, to fall off a point.
  • (n.) A short piece of cordage used in reefing sails. See Reef point, under Reef.
  • (n.) A a string or lace used to tie together certain parts of the dress.
  • (n.) Lace wrought the needle; as, point de Venise; Brussels point. See Point lace, below.
  • (n.) A switch.
  • (n.) An item of private information; a hint; a tip; a pointer.
  • (n.) A fielder who is stationed on the off side, about twelve or fifteen yards from, and a little in advance of, the batsman.
  • (n.) The attitude assumed by a pointer dog when he finds game; as, the dog came to a point. See Pointer.
  • (n.) A standard unit of measure for the size of type bodies, being one twelfth of the thickness of pica type. See Point system of type, under Type.
  • (n.) A tyne or snag of an antler.
  • (n.) One of the spaces on a backgammon board.
  • (n.) A movement executed with the saber or foil; as, tierce point.
  • (n.) To give a point to; to sharpen; to cut, forge, grind, or file to an acute end; as, to point a dart, or a pencil. Used also figuratively; as, to point a moral.
  • (n.) To direct toward an abject; to aim; as, to point a gun at a wolf, or a cannon at a fort.
  • (n.) Hence, to direct the attention or notice of.
  • (n.) To supply with punctuation marks; to punctuate; as, to point a composition.
  • (n.) To mark (as Hebrew) with vowel points.
  • (n.) To give particular prominence to; to designate in a special manner; to indicate, as if by pointing; as, the error was pointed out.
  • (n.) To indicate or discover by a fixed look, as game.
  • (n.) To fill up and finish the joints of (a wall), by introducing additional cement or mortar, and bringing it to a smooth surface.
  • (n.) To cut, as a surface, with a pointed tool.
  • (v. i.) To direct the point of something, as of a finger, for the purpose of designating an object, and attracting attention to it; -- with at.
  • (v. i.) To indicate the presence of game by fixed and steady look, as certain hunting dogs do.
  • (v. i.) To approximate to the surface; to head; -- said of an abscess.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Single-case experimental designs are presented and discussed from several points of view: Historical antecedents, assessment of the dependent variable, internal and external validity and pre-experimental vs experimental single-case designs.
  • (2) Well tolerated from the clinical and laboratory points of view, it proved remarkably effective.
  • (3) We are pursuing legal action because there are still so many unanswered questions about the viability of Shenhua’s proposed koala plan and it seems at this point the plan does not guarantee the survival of the estimated 262 koalas currently living where Shenhua wants to put its mine,” said Ranclaud.
  • (4) She knows you can’t force the opposition to submit to your point of view.
  • (5) The isoelectric points (pI) of E1 and E2 for all VEE strains studied were approx.
  • (6) Ofcom will conduct research, such as mystery shopping, to assess the transparency of contractual information given to customers by providers at the point of sale".
  • (7) Fifty-two pairs of canine femora were tested to failure in four-point bending.
  • (8) A one point dilution enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) procedure suitable for determining immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibody levels to Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) in community seroepidemiological surveys is described.
  • (9) Subsequent isoelectric focusing in sucrose revealed an isoelectric point of 9.0-9.2.
  • (10) Gross deformity, point tenderness and decrease in supination and pronation movements of the forearm were the best predictors of bony injury.
  • (11) Whole-virus vaccines prepared by Merck Sharp and Dohme (West Point, Pa.) and Merrell-National Laboratories (Cincinnati, Ohio) and subunit vaccines prepared by Parke, Davis and Company (Detroit, Mich.) and Wyeth Laboratories (Philadelphia, Pa.) were given intramuscularly in concentrations of 800, 400, or 200 chick cell-agglutinating units per dose.
  • (12) A Monte Carlo simulation was performed to characterize the spatial and energy distribution of bremsstrahlung radiation from beta point sources important to radioimmunotherapy (RIT).
  • (13) From the social economic point of view nosocomial infections represent a very important cost factor, which could be reduced to great deal by activities for prevention of nosocomial infection.
  • (14) He said Germany was Russia’s most important economic partner, and pointed out that 35% of German gas originated in Russia.
  • (15) Many examples are given to demonstrate the applications of these programs, and special emphasis has been laid on the problem of treating a point in tissue with different doses per fraction on alternate treatment days.
  • (16) In 11 of the 22 cells PAI-1 mRNA and in 6 of the 22 cells PAI-2 mRNA was found, pointing to a possible role of plasminogen activator inhibitors in the tumor-related plasminogen activator activity.
  • (17) Sequence specific binding of protein extracts from 13 different yeast species to three oligonucleotide probes and two points mutants derived from Saccharomyces cerevisiae DNA binding proteins were tested using mobility shift assays.
  • (18) Recent studies point to the involvement of regulatory peptides in diseases of the gut and lung.
  • (19) The positive predictive accuracy of a biophysical profile score of 0, with mortality and morbidity used as end points, was 100%.
  • (20) The starting point is the idea that the current system, because it works against biodiversity but fails to increase productivity, is broken.

Secant


Definition:

  • (a.) Cutting; divivding into two parts; as, a secant line.
  • (a.) A line that cuts another; especially, a straight line cutting a curve in two or more points.
  • (a.) A right line drawn from the center of a circle through one end of a circular arc, and terminated by a tangent drawn from the other end; the number expressing the ratio line of this line to the radius of the circle. See Trigonometrical function, under Function.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The absorbed light per unit area illuminated decreases with increasing angle, because the area illuminated by the laser beam is proportional to the secant of the incident angle.
  • (2) In the course of history of anatomy the prosector (dissector, incisor, secant, sculptor, procurator) held total different positions: at first he acted as a manual craftsman (barber surgeon) and as teacher's assistant lacking any academic education (organized in fraternities or guilds).
  • (3) Newton's method appears to have better convergence properties than the secant method in the likelihood ratio test case.
  • (4) Results indicate that a secant modulus could be determined by measuring indenter force and contact area.
  • (5) The basis of several solution methods is described; the PROSYN program is capable of using either of two (bracketting and the secant method) of these procedures.
  • (6) The conjugate gradient method is used to optimize the inversion slice profile produced by complex hyperbolic secant selective pulses.
  • (7) It is found that multifrequency selective excitation with sinc pulses--up to eight slices are investigated--and two-frequency inversion with hyperbolic secant pulses lead to profiles comparable in quality and selectivity to those of conventional single-frequency pulses.
  • (8) Similarly, the secant method is easier to implement for the computation of score test based intervals.
  • (9) An automated imaging technique, based upon the method of directed secants, was used to quantify variations in bone porosity and trabecular size, distribution, and orientation within serial transverse histological sections of the L1 and L2 vertebral centrum.
  • (10) The Secant formula and Euler's formula were proved to be specific cases in this general solution.
  • (11) However, the secant method may be easier to program for models with link functions that are not natural.