How to Use trigonometry in a Sentence

trigonometry

noun
  • With two years left on his contract, Hornacek ought to look ahead and leave trigonometry in the past.
    Scott Cacciola, New York Times, 29 June 2017
  • Plotted over a year (in this case, from March to March), the length of daylight looks like one of our old friends from trigonometry class - the sine curve.
    OrlandoSentinel.com, 21 Sep. 2017
  • The ancient Greeks invented trigonometry to study the motion of the stars.
    Kevin Hartnett, Wired, 20 June 2021
  • The drudgery of reviewing a year’s worth of earth sciences and trigonometry notes.
    Liz Robbins, New York Times, 18 June 2016
  • The horizontal line of sight distance, from your cheekbone to the base of the tree, by trigonometry, is about equal to the vertical height of the tree.
    Ron Seifer, sun-sentinel.com, 24 June 2021
  • The first is to measure Everest the old-fashioned way using trigonometry.
    Joanna Slater, The Denver Post, 21 Oct. 2019
  • Choosing the right school, however, can be as tricky as trigonometry.
    Seth Abramovitch, The Hollywood Reporter, 26 May 2017
  • Spools of fishing wire are pulling and tugging at the board itself from the engines, which make their moves based on trigonometry gained from data from the infrared cameras.
    David Grossman, Popular Mechanics, 23 Mar. 2017
  • Algebra II is frequently combined with trigonometry in the third year of high school math.
    Washington Post, 6 Apr. 2021
  • Twenty years ago someone who aspired to be a contractor did not need to learn trigonometry.
    Allison Schrager, Quartz, 6 June 2019
  • Therefore, the Babylonians, not the Greeks, were the pioneers of trigonometry.
    Carl Engelking, Discover Magazine, 24 Aug. 2017
  • Here’s the best-case scenario: a bad guy comes in with an AR-15, Mr. Hanabrink pauses his trigonometry lesson, pulls a .22 from under his sweater vest, calmly enters the fray, and delivers the kill shot.
    Dave Holmes, Esquire, 23 Feb. 2018
  • Right now, for example, Theo was playing Liberate Hong Kong on his computer while in trigonometry class at the same time.
    Gish Jen, The New Yorker, 15 Nov. 2021
  • The Greek astronomer Hipparchus has widely been considered the father of trigonometry.
    Sarah Gibbens, National Geographic, 25 Aug. 2017
  • Students can use it for trigonometry and calculus too, though there are better options on this list for more advanced courses.
    Rachel Klein, Popular Mechanics, 26 July 2022
  • Functions and trigonometry came easily, but the basics gave him trouble.
    Collin Binkley, The Christian Science Monitor, 31 Aug. 2023
  • Measuring the angle of the shift allows astronomers to calculate the distance of the object with trigonometry, explains a press release from the Max Plank Society.
    Marissa Fessenden, Smithsonian, 14 Oct. 2017
  • However, West said, this is an illusion of the two-dimensional video, one that can be demystified by the readout on the screen and a little trigonometry.
    Andrew Dyer, San Diego Union-Tribune, 29 May 2021
  • This allows the software to do some basic trigonometry to calculate the range and orientation of objects in the environment.
    Sam Abuelsamid, Forbes, 29 Dec. 2021
  • The school has no math classes beyond algebra and geometry, so the hero’s father persuades him to learn trigonometry and calculus on his own to pursue his dream of going to space.
    Washington Post, 4 Nov. 2020
  • There are a lot more ways multiples of 60 can be divided into fractions, which makes trigonometry much easier.
    Avery Thompson, Popular Mechanics, 25 Aug. 2017
  • His sine law allows anyone with a decent grounding in trigonometry to use a pendulum to determine their latitude.
    Alicia Ault, Smithsonian, 3 Feb. 2018
  • These roots of unity possess a remarkably rich structure that connects to high school math like trigonometry and rotations of the plane as well as ongoing research that involves some of the great unanswered questions in modern math.
    Quanta Magazine, 23 Sep. 2021
  • But today, out of nowhere, the instructor drops an absurdly thick trigonometry tome on your classroom chair-and-desk combo, causing everything — including you — to rattle for a few seconds.
    Nick Moyle, San Antonio Express-News, 21 Jan. 2018
  • The Cardinal defensive line is probably better at trigonometry than football at this point.
    Kevin Acee, sandiegouniontribune.com, 14 Sep. 2017
  • Westwood could use three more math teachers, but 23 of them are already there, introducing students to the basics of algebra, geometry and trigonometry.
    Eliza Fawcett, New York Times, 29 Aug. 2022
  • Nicco Martin, a freshman studying computer science, learned to appreciate math thanks to Bernards’ style of teaching trigonometry this spring.
    oregonlive, 18 June 2021
  • Science historians have long regarded the creator of trigonometry to be the Greek astronomer Hipparchus and his contemporaries.
    Ben Panko, Smithsonian, 28 Aug. 2017
  • Science historians have long regarded the creator of trigonometry to be the Greek astronomer Hipparchus and his contemporaries.
    Ben Panko, Smithsonian, 28 Aug. 2017
  • Two high school students have proved the Pythagorean theorem in a way that one early 20th-century mathematician thought was impossible: using trigonometry.
    Leila Sloman, Scientific American, 10 Apr. 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'trigonometry.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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