Other forms: angles, angled, angling
An angle is how much turn there is between two lines that meet. The corner where the wall meets the floor is a right angle; open a pair of scissors and you widen one; lean a ladder against a house and the angle it makes decides whether it stays there.
Angles are measured in degrees and the school words come as a set: right, acute, obtuse, reflex. Out of the classroom an angle is a lean away from straight — a picture hanging at an angle, a hat at an angle. It is also a way of looking at something: tell the story from the parents' angle, or film the same building from a low angle. Ask what somebody's angle is and you are asking what they are really after, which is a suspicious question rather than a neutral one. The verb points a thing where you want it — she angled the lamp at the page — and angling, confusingly, is fishing with a rod.
1nounangleThe amount of turn between two lines that meet, measured in degrees.~68%
“Measure the angle where the two walls meet.”
2nounslantA slope away from straight or upright.~6%
“The picture on the wall hangs at an angle.”
synonyms: slant, tilt
3nounviewA way of looking at something.~23%
“Try telling the story from the parents' angle.”
synonyms: point of view, approach
4verbpointsTo turn something so that it points a particular way.~3%
“She angled the lamp at the page.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 189 sentences found in the wild and placed 132 of them on a sense (57 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
angle is a measurement in degrees.
Latin angulus was a corner, and English holds its twin already: ankle. The corner of a room and the bend of a leg are one word split in two. The angler is different again — Old English angel, a fishhook, from a root meaning to make crooked. Everything here is something bent.
Latin
angulus
Middle French
angle
Middle English
angle
English, today
angle
From Middle English angle, from Middle French angle, from Latin angulus. From Middle English angle, angul, angule, borrowed from Middle French angle, from Latin angulus (“corner, remote area”). Cognate with Old High German ancha (“nape of the neck”), Middle High German anke (“joint of the foot, nape of neck”). a doublet of angulus and ankle.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA