polar coordinate

noun

: either of two numbers that locate a point in a plane by its distance from a fixed point on a line and the angle this line makes with a fixed line

Example Sentences

Recent Examples on the Web

Leonardo applied a mapping technique developed by Florentine humanist Leon Battista Alberti, who proposed that a town can be mapped using polar coordinates. —National Geographic, 21 May 2020

Critical mathematical applications such as Fourier transforms, Riemann zeta functions, Gaussian distributions, roots of unity, integrating over polar coordinates and pretty much anything involving trigonometry employs pi. —Randyn Charles Bartholomew, Scientific American, 25 June 2014

Word History

First Known Use

1816, in the meaning defined above