(in a right-angled triangle) the ratio of the side (other than the hypotenuse) adjacent to a particular acute angle to the side opposite the angle.
- ‘If the tangent of an angle is a/b then the cotangent of that angle is b/a.’
- ‘Since we want the cotangent, just take the reciprocal to solve.’
- ‘I can't tell the difference between radians, tangents, cotangents, secants, etc.’
- ‘The tangent and cotangent came via a different route from the chord approach of the sine.’
- ‘The first tabulates logarithms of the sine, cosine, tangent and cotangent functions at 1 intervals and shows how to solve triangles using logarithmic functions.’
We take a look at several popular, though confusing, punctuation marks.