What's the difference between scant and secant?

Scant


Definition:

  • (superl.) Not full, large, or plentiful; scarcely sufficient; less than is wanted for the purpose; scanty; meager; not enough; as, a scant allowance of provisions or water; a scant pattern of cloth for a garment.
  • (superl.) Sparing; parsimonious; chary.
  • (v. t.) To limit; to straiten; to treat illiberally; to stint; as, to scant one in provisions; to scant ourselves in the use of necessaries.
  • (v. t.) To cut short; to make small, narrow, or scanty; to curtail.
  • (v. i.) To fail, or become less; to scantle; as, the wind scants.
  • (adv.) In a scant manner; with difficulty; scarcely; hardly.
  • (n.) Scantness; scarcity.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) It is worth noting though that the government is reaping scant reward in the polls even though the economy has expanded by more than 3% over the past year and – according to the IMF – will be the fastest growing of the G7 economies this year.
  • (2) A few days on, we still don't know much , and the evidence against Lewthwaite is scant and contradictory.
  • (3) Despite scant histopathologic changes, motoneuron action potential discharge at this time was significantly altered in latency to onset of spike and rate of rise.
  • (4) Deep veins in the leg have little sympathetic innervation and scant vascular smooth muscle, so their compliance may be determined primarily by the surrounding skeletal muscle.
  • (5) Guidelines to show whether a patient hospitalized because of a urinary tract infection (UTI) has a severe infection, and whether he or she is at high risk for harboring a multiresistant pathogen, are scant.
  • (6) Assay sensitivity is greatly enhanced by pre-amplification of the target nucleic acid segment, enabling extremely scant tissue samples to be analysed and low grade infections to be detected.
  • (7) A review of the scant literature available on this condition reflect how uncommon it is, particularly in fertile subjects.
  • (8) There is, however, scant comparative information about the use of bloodspot eluates for detection of malarial IgG antibodies simultaneously by IFAT and enzyme immunoassay (ELISA).
  • (9) The rule of law collapses into expediency unless judges are independent and self-confident, and the evidence of such judges in Putin's Russia are scant indeed.
  • (10) So perhaps the news that most cancers are the product of bad luck – rather than, say, our diet or lifestyles – is scant reassurance.
  • (11) Using the scant evidence available in the literature, this study conducts a sensitivity analysis to calculate the unrecognized costs of antibiotic use annually in the United States under various possible circumstances.
  • (12) Lipid droplets and elements of smooth endoplasmic reticulum are scant.
  • (13) Third, there were cells whose surfaces exhibited dense populations of cilia and scant numbers of microvilli.
  • (14) The concept of insight into psychosis has received scant attention in the psychiatric literature.
  • (15) The first but very scant cardiomotor terminals appear in this period.
  • (16) In a brief review of the psychiatric literature on the psychological development of the child it is noted that only scant attention has been given to the influences of man's inborn aggressive drives in determining "how we get to be the way we are."
  • (17) Three types of seminoma cells could be distinguished on the basis of the relation between glycogen accumulation and cytoplasmic organelles: 1. tumor cells with plentiful glycogen and scant organelles, 2. tumor cells packed with organelles including RER, mitochondria and Golgi-apparatus but with finely dispersed glycogen, 3. tumor cells with numerous free ribosomes but few organelles and little glycogen.
  • (18) Nushra Mansuri, a professional officer at the British Association of Social Workers : "Was sad that there was scant focus on putting forward proposals to improve the situation for children in care across the board – we are in danger of promoting a two tier system."
  • (19) Intensity patterns were suggestive of hemorrhage, but neither acute nor chronic hemorrhage was identified on routine H and E stains, while iron stain revealed scant hemorrhage in only two of the eight patients in whom these stains were used.
  • (20) Wherever I went, I got nothing.” ‘Everything I have is inside this room’ Suleymanova’s family live in one dim, narrow, room scant with furniture.

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.