orthogonal
adjective · noun
Simple meaning
At right angles.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
awrthawguhnuhlSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ɔɹˈθɔɡənəl
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
geometry
Of two objects, at right angles; perpendicular to each other.
mathematics
Of a pair of vectors: having a zero inner product; perpendicular.
mathematics
Of a square matrix: such that its transpose is equal to its inverse.
Of two or more problems or subjects, independent of or irrelevant to each other.
noun
An orthogonal line.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Of two objects, at right angles; perpendicular to each other.
Used this way, orthogonal is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a mathematical use: it is defined precisely and belongs to working with figures and calculations rather than to ordinary conversation.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Mathematics
- Geometry
- Academic writing
- Education/classroom
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
The relation of opposition between things at right angles.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: of two objects or at right angles
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.