cone
Pronunciation: (kōn), [key]
— n., v., coned, con•ing.
—n.
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- a solid whose surface is generated by a line passing through a fixed point and a fixed plane curve not containing the point, consisting of two equal sections joined at a vertex.
- a plane surface resembling the cross section of a solid cone.
- anything shaped like a cone: sawdust piled up in a great cone; the cone of a volcano.
- See
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- the more or less conical multiple fruit of the pine, fir, etc., consisting of overlapping or valvate scales bearing naked ovules or seeds; a strobile.
- a similar fruit, as in cycads or club mosses.
- one of the cone-shaped cells in the retina of the eye, sensitive to color and intensity of light. Cf. rod (def. 17).
- one of a series of cone-shaped markers placed along a road, as around an area of highway construction, esp. to exclude or divert motor vehicles.
- (in a taper thread screw or bevel gear) an imaginary cone or frustum of a cone concentric to the axis and defining the pitch surface or one of the extremities of the threads or teeth.
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—v.t.
- to shape like a cone or a segment of a cone.
Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.