parabola : Dictionary / Wörterbuch (BEOLINGUS, TU Chemnitz)

English Dictionary: parabola	by the DICT Development Group
2 results for parabola
From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
parabola n a plane curve formed by the intersection of a right circular cone and a plane parallel to an element of the curve
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]:
Parabola \Parab"ola\, n.; pl. {Parabolas}. [NL., fr. Gr. [?]; -- so called because its axis is parallel to the side of the cone. See {Parable}, and cf. {Parabole}.] (Geom.) (a) A kind of curve; one of the conic sections formed by the intersection of the surface of a cone with a plane parallel to one of its sides. It is a curve, any point of which is equally distant from a fixed point, called the focus, and a fixed straight line, called the directrix. See {Focus}. (b) One of a group of curves defined by the equation y = ax^{n} where n is a positive whole number or a positive fraction. For the {cubical parabola} n = 3; for the {semicubical parabola} n = [frac32]. See under {Cubical}, and {Semicubical}. The parabolas have infinite branches, but no rectilineal asymptotes.