Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The highest point; the apex or summit.
  • noun The highest point of the skull.
  • noun The top of the head.
  • noun In astrology, the highest point reached in the apparent motion of a celestial body.
  • noun The point at which the sides of an angle intersect.
  • noun The point on a triangle or pyramid opposite to and farthest away from its base.
  • noun A point on a polyhedron common to three or more sides.
  • noun A point of maximal curvature on a parabola or hyperbola.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In geometry, the point at which concurrent straights meet.
  • noun The highest or principal point; apex; top; crown; summit.
  • noun In mathematics, a point of a figure most distant from the center; any convex angle of a polygon.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A turning point; the principal or highest point; top; summit; crown; apex.
  • noun (Anat.) The top, or crown, of the head.
  • noun (Astron.) The zenith, or the point of the heavens directly overhead.
  • noun (Math.) The point in any figure opposite to, and farthest from, the base; the terminating point of some particular line or lines in a figure or a curve; the top, or the point opposite the base.
  • noun (Math.) the point in which the axis of the curve intersects it.
  • noun (Math.) the point in which the sides of the angle meet.
  • noun (Math.) the point in which the axis pierces the surface.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The highest point of something.
  • noun anatomy The highest surface on the skull.
  • noun geometry The common point of the two rays of the angle, or its equivalent structure in polyedra (meeting of edges) and higher order polytopes.
  • noun mathematics A point on the curve with a local minimum or maximum of curvature.
  • noun graph theory One of the elements of a graph joined or not by edges to other vertices.
  • noun computer graphics A point in 3D space, usually given in terms of its Cartesian coordinates.
  • noun optics The point where the surface of a lens crosses the optical axis.
  • noun An interaction point.
  • noun astrology The point where the prime vertical meets the ecliptic in the western hemisphere of a natal chart.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the point of intersection of lines or the point opposite the base of a figure
  • noun the highest point (of something)

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin, whirlpool, crown of the head (where the hair forms a whorl), vertex, from vertere, to turn; see wer- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin vertex ("top, peak"), from vertere ("to turn")

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Examples

  • Thus: what we call the vertex of the Brain is really its base and what we call its base is really its vertex, it is simply a question of nomenclature.

    ginger's thoughts » A review of the W3C Timed Text Authoring Format 2009

  • Thus: what we call the vertex of the Brain is really its base and what we call its base is really its vertex, it is simply a question of nomenclature.

    ginger's thoughts » 2009 » June 2009

  • Thus the interior angle at each vertex is either 90° or 270°.

    Scenic Villa Design in Switzerland by GD Architectes 2009

  • "What we call the vertex of the Brain is really its base: and what we call its base is really its vertex: it is simply a question of nomenclature."

    Sylvie and Bruno Lewis Carroll 1865

  • The Harvard Medical School Family Health Guide, DHT promotes both the proliferation of prostate cells and hair loss, and that men who were diagnosed with prostate cancer were more likely to have had bald spots on the tops of their heads, which is referred to as vertex baldness, as opposed to those men who did not have bald spots.

    Yahoo! News: Business - Opinion 2011

  • At the vertex is a medical student named Karlanner (played by Stephen Barker Turner), a kind of emblematic conflicted "good German" - leftishly inclined, living with the Jewish girlfriend who rescued him from alcoholism.

    A Lost Voice Surfaces From A Sinister Interlude 1933

  • The brightest star will be identified as the vertex of a right-angled triangle, of which the line from Vega to the Pole Star is the base, as shown in Fig. 91.

    The Story of the Heavens 1876

  • These last move more and more quickly until they reach what is called the vertex of the parabola (the point of such a path which lies nearest to the sun): projectiles, on the contrary, move more and more slowly as they approach the corresponding point of their path; and further, the comet first approaches and then recedes from the centre of attraction -- the projectile first recedes from and then approaches the attracting centre.

    Myths and Marvels of Astronomy 1862

  • Another is the ability to separate two components called vertex shaders and fragment shaders that previously had to be linked together.

    Broadcast Engineering RSS Feed 2010

  • Another is a feature DirectX programmers already enjoy, the ability to separate two components called vertex shaders and fragment shaders that previously had to be linked together.

    eCoustics.com news 2010

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  • a virtual texan??

    December 11, 2010