Other forms: ellipses
An ellipse is a regular oval, like a squashed circle. Draw an ellipse, an elliptical orbit, the shape of an ellipse.
It has two focus points rather than one centre, and every planet moves in an ellipse with the sun at one of them, which is Kepler's first law. Drawing one with two pins and a loop of string is the classic demonstration.
1nounellipseA regular oval, like a squashed circle.
“The Earth moves round the Sun in an ellipse rather than a perfect circle.”
ellipse is a shape.
Greek elleipsis means a falling short, from the geometry of conic sections; ellipsis is a doublet.
Proto-Indo-European
*leykʷ-
Ancient Greek
ἔλλειψις
Latin
ellīpsis
French
ellipse
English, today
ellipse
From French ellipse. Latin ellīpsis, itself a borrowing from Ancient Greek ἔλλειψις. a doublet of ellipsis.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA