Etymologically
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angular

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Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˈæŋ.ɡju.lə/[1]
  • US: /ˈæŋ.ɡjə.lɚ/[1]

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

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