vertical
adjective · noun
Simple meaning
Standing, pointing, or moving straight up or down.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
vurtihkuhlSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈvɝtɪkəl
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
Standing, pointing, or moving straight up or down; parallel to the local direction of gravity; along the direction of a plumb line; perpendicular to something horizontal.
In a two-dimensional Cartesian co-ordinate system, describing the axis y oriented normal (perpendicular, at right angles) to the horizontal axis x.
In a three-dimensional co-ordinate system, describing the axis z oriented normal (perpendicular, orthogonal) to the basic plane xy.
noun
A vertex or zenith.
An individual slat in a set of vertical blinds.
A vertical component of a structure.
A vertical geometrical figure; a perpendicular.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Standing, pointing, or moving straight up or down; parallel to the local direction of gravity; along the direction of a plumb line; perpendicular to something horizontal.
Used this way, vertical 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.
More ways to use vertical
- “A vertical camera angle.”adjective
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Either of two equal and opposite angles formed by the intersection of two straight lines.
A bank so steep that the plane's lateral axis approaches the vertical.
A great circle on the celestial sphere passing through the zenith and perpendicular to the horizon.
Absorption into a single firm of several firms involved in all aspects of a product's manufacture from raw materials to distribution.
A file in which records are stored upright on one edge.
A stabilizer that is part of the vertical tail structure of an airplane.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
- horizontallyadverb
- horizontaladjective
- shaftnoun
- verticallyadverb
- diagonalnoun
- shearnoun
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Antonyms
Sense: standing or pointing or or moving straight up
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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.