angular

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin angulāris (“placed at the corners; having angles or corners”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} perhaps influenced by Old French angulaire.^[7][8][9] The Latin adjective is formed from angulus (“angle, corner”) and the suffix -āris.^[2][10][8] In medieval Latin it was already used of the four zodiac signs at the cardinal points, in Bartholomaeus Anglicus (c. 1230–50).^[2] Angulus is from Proto-Indo-European *ang- (“to bend”), also given as *ank-, according to Etymonline, the root of angle.^[3] The noun, a bone of the jaw, was formed in English after angulaire, short for os angulaire (“angular bone”).^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

In astrology, of a sign or house of the zodiac: situated at one of the four cardinal points; before 1398, in John Trevisa's translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus's De Proprietatibus Rerum.^{[2][7][3][11]}

Semantic evolution

The astrological sense, now rare, was the first;^[2][6] the ordinary geometric senses followed: forming an angle (before 1525), having angles or corners (1570, in Billingsley's translation of Euclid), and placed at an angle, slanting (before 1626, in Bacon).^[2] Etymonline dates "having an angle or angles" from the 1590s.^[3] In physics and mathematics it has meant "measured by an angle" since 1610; from 1674 it also described rotation about a point, as in angular motion.^[2][3] Johnson (1755) gave only "having angles or corners".^[12] The figurative senses came late: of a person's face or body, lean and bony (1789), of movement, jerky or awkward (1830), and of manner, stiff and unaccommodating (1808).^[2][13] The noun, a bone of the lower jaw in non-mammalian vertebrates, dates from 1846, after an earlier veterinary use for the lacrimal bone (1802).^[2][8]

Timeline

• before 1398 – in astrology, situated at a cardinal point.^[2][7]
• before 1525 – forming an angle.^[2]
• 1570 – having angles or corners.^[2]
• 1610 – measured by an angle.^[2]
• 1674 – of motion, rotational about a point.^[2][3]
• 1765 – of handwriting, spiky, not rounded.^[2]
• 1789 – of a person, lean and bony.^[2]
• 1808 – stiff in manner, prickly.^[2]
• 1846 – noun, a bone of the lower jaw in non-mammalian vertebrates.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Having an angle or angles; sharp-cornered rather than curved: an angular roofline.^[8][13][2]
2. Placed at an angle; oblique.^[13][2]
3. Measured by an angle, or by the rate at which an angle changes: angular distance, angular momentum.^[13][8][2]
4. Of a person or a face, lean and bony.^[13][8][2]
5. Stiff and awkward in manner or movement.^[13][8][2]
6. In astrology, of the four houses at the cardinal points of a horoscope.^[8][2]

Noun

1. A membrane bone in the rear part of the lower jaw of most vertebrates other than mammals.^[8][2]

Word family

• angularly
• angularness
• equiangular

Related words

• quadrangular
• triangular
• angle
• rectangular
• angulate

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins