osculation

English

WOTD – 14 February 2008

Etymology

From Latin ōsculātiō (“a kissing”), from osculor (“I kiss”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌɒs.kjʊˈleɪ.ʃən/, /ˌɒs.kjəˈleɪ.ʃən/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˌɑs.kjuˈleɪ.ʃən/, /ˌɑs.kjəˈleɪ.ʃən/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪʃən

Noun

osculation of a circle and a curve C

osculation (countable and uncountable, plural osculations)

1. The action of kissing.
2. A kiss.
   • 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 2, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC:

     The Major she held to be a sort of Bayard among Majors: and as for her son Arthur she worshipped that youth with an ardour which the young scapegrace accepted almost as coolly as the statue of the Saint in Saint Peter’s receives the rapturous osculations which the faithful deliver on his toe.

3. A close contact.
4. (mathematics) A contact between curves or surfaces, at which point they have a common tangent.
5. (Vedic arithmetic) Determining whether a number is divisible by another by means of certain operations on its digits.

Related terms

• inosculation
• interosculation
• oscular
• osculate
• osculatory
• osculum

 

Translations

a contact between curves or surfaces

• Swedish: oskulation c

French

Pronunciation

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

osculation f (plural osculations)

1. osculation

Further reading

• “osculation”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.