Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Something shaped like a curve or arch.
  • noun Mathematics A segment of a circle.
  • noun An electric arc.
  • noun Astronomy The apparent path of a celestial body as it rises above and falls below the horizon.
  • noun A progression of events suggesting narrative cohesion, especially one that rises to a climax and settles to a final conclusion.
  • intransitive verb To form an arc.
  • intransitive verb To move or seem to move in a curved path.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Obsolete form of ark.
  • noun In geometry, any part of a curved line, as of a circle, especially one which does not include a point of inflection or cusp.
  • noun In astronomy, a part of a circle traversed by the sun or other heavenly body; especially, the part passed over by a star between its rising and setting.
  • noun In architecture, an arch.
  • noun An abbreviation of Associate of the Royal College of Organists.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Geom.) A portion of a curved line.
  • noun A curvature in the shape of a circular arc or an arch
  • noun obsolete An arch.
  • noun The apparent arc described, above or below the horizon, by the sun or other celestial body. The diurnal arc is described during the daytime, the nocturnal arc during the night.
  • noun See under Voltaic.
  • intransitive verb (Elec.) To form a voltaic arc, as an electrical current in a broken or disconnected circuit.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun graph theory A directed edge.
  • verb intransitive To move following a curved path.
  • verb intransitive To form an electrical arc.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun something curved in shape
  • verb form an arch or curve
  • noun a continuous portion of a circle
  • noun electrical conduction through a gas in an applied electric field

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English ark, from Old French arc, from Latin arcus.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English, from Old French arc, from Latin arcus ("a bow, arc, arch").

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Examples

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  • In bookselling: Advanced Reading Copy.

    August 22, 2008

  • "arc" in Hungarian means: face

    August 1, 2012