Osculant

Quick meaning: Osculant is an adjective meaning Kissing; hence, touching or meeting; clinging.

Meaning

Kissing; hence, touching or meeting; clinging.

More Meanings

1. (zoology) Adhering closely; applied to certain creeping animals, such as caterpillars.
2. (biology) Intermediate between two genera, groups, families, etc., and having some of the characteristics of each; interosculant.
3. (geometry) Tangent, touching at a single point.
4. (geometry) The point at which two tangent curves touch.
5. (mathematics) a form of tacinvariant of hypersurfaces that have a point in common
6. (Bantu linguistics) Intermediate between multiple potentially reconstructible protoforms, but having a mismatch in semantics or morphology that cannot be explained through regular patterns of change.
7. (algebra) The condition that the solution to a set of simultaneous quantics, is also the solution of the corresponding set of tangential quantics.

Example Sentences

The genera by which two families approximate are called osculant genera.

Word Forms

• osculants

Synonyms for osculant

Depending on context, synonyms include tacinvariant.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include occluse, cheiloproclitic, collisive, cuspal, clefted, canthal.

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