Definitions

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

  • noun The path of a projectile or other moving body through space.
  • noun A chosen or taken course.
  • noun Mathematics A curve that cuts all of a given family of curves or surfaces at the same angle.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The path described by a body moving under the action of given forces; specifically, the curve described by a projectile in its flight through the air. Compare range, 4.
  • noun In geometry, a curve which cuts all the curves or surfaces of a given system at a constant angle. When the constant angle is a right angle, the trajectory is called an orthogonal trajectory.

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

  • noun The curve which a body describes in space, as a planet or comet in its orbit, or stone thrown upward obliquely in the air.

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

  • noun The path of a body as it travels through space.
  • noun cybernetics The ordered set of intermediate states assumed by a dynamical system as a result of time evolution.
  • noun Metaphorically, a course of development, such as that of a war or career.

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

  • noun the path followed by an object moving through space

Etymologies

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

[New Latin trāiectōria, from Latin trāiectus, past participle of trāicere, to throw across; see traject.]

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Examples

Comments

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  • Love this word. Love it, love it, love it. I even got to use it at work today. Alsome.

    October 26, 2007

  • When Jake leaped, his trajectory made an arc that framed Grainer for me in weird vividness. From "The Last Werewolf" by Glen Duncan.

    March 30, 2012