Angular

a. [ad. L. angulār-is, f. angul-us: see ANGLE and -AR. Cf. Fr. angulaire.]

  1.  Having an angle or angles, sharp-cornered.

1598.  Florio, Triangolare, three angular, hauing three corners, three cornered.

a. 1631.  Donne, Poems (1650), 240. Enormous greatnesses, which are So disproportion’d and so angulare.

1664.  Power, Exp. Philos., I. 55. Hairs … are none of them Cylindrical, but angular and corner’d.

1756.  Burke, Subl. & B., Wks. I. 238. Perfectly beautiful bodies are not composed of angular parts.

1857.  Henfrey, Elem. Bot., § 58. A stem is … angular when the section is polygonal.

1878.  Green, Coal, ii. 55. Nearly all the grains of quartz are angular.

  b.  Of writing: Having the turns angled instead of rounded, as in German handwriting.

1863.  Burton, Bk. Hunter, 41. His handwriting was clear, angular, and unimpassioned.

  2.  Of or pertaining to an angle: a. Constituting an angle, sharp corner, or apex; also fig.

1597.  J. King, Jonah, xxiii. (1864), 145. The night which followed the sabbath of the Jews was the angular night … for both it belonged to the Sabbath preceding, and must be ascribed again unto the Christian Sabbath.

1675.  Ogilby, Brit., Introd. The next Angular Point being at Ivy Bridg.

1699.  Newton, Opticks (1721), 304 (J.). The distance of four Inches from the Angular Point, where the edges of the Knives meet.

1831.  Brewster, Optics, xi. 98. At the angular termination of bodies these fringes widen.

1855.  Owen, Skel. & Teeth, 18. In the cod there is a small separate bone, below the joint of the articular, forming an angle there, and called the ‘angular piece.’

  b.  Placed in or at an angle.

1842.  E. Wilson, Anat. Vade M., 336. The frontal is continued downwards by the side of the root of the nose, under the name of the angular vein.

1874.  Boutell, Arms & Arm., v. 78. The space between the angular bands.

1880.  Syd. Soc. Lex., Angular artery … The terminal branch of the facial artery.

  c.  Measured by angle.

1674.  Pelly, Disc. bef. R. Soc., 129. I call … the motion of the Biasses … the Angular or Curve Motion.

1785.  Reid, Intell. Powers, 159. Astronomers call it angular distance.

1796.  Hutton, Math. Dict., I. 116/2. Angular Motion, is the motion of a body which moves circularly about a point. Thus, a pendulum has an angular motion about its centre of motion; and the planets have an angular motion about the sun.

1867.  J. Hogg, Microsc., I. ii. 41. The focal length is ¹/₈ of an inch, having an angular aperture of 60°.

1880.  Gray, Bot. Text.-bk., 396. The angular divergence, or distance of the axis of the first leaf from the second.

  3.  Of personal appearance: Having the joints and bony protuberances prominent, through deficiency of roundness and plumpness in the fleshy parts. Of action: Moving the limbs in angles, jerky, abrupt, ungraceful, awkward.

1850.  Blackie, Æschylus, I. Pref. 45. Their movements were slow, their gesticulations abrupt and angular.

1858.  O. W. Holmes, Aut. Breakf.-t. The angular female in black bombazine.

1880.  McCarthy, Own Times, IV. l. 61. His gestures were angular and ungraceful.

  4.  Of character: Stiff and formal; hard and wanting suavity; crotchety and deficient in savoir faire; unaccommodating; cantankerous.

1840.  Hawthorne, Biog. Sk. (1879), 180. Here follow many bows and a deal of angular politeness on both sides.

1851.  Ryland, Neander’s Planting of Chr., II. 204. Rugged and angular natures.

1870.  Dickens, E. Drood, 62. As a particularly angular man, I do not fit smoothly into the social circle.

  5.  Astrol. Of an ‘angle’: see ANGLE sb.² 8.

1643.  Milton, Divorce, I. x. (1847), 133/2. The supernal influence of schemes and angular aspects.

  6.  -angular, -angled, as in ACUTANGULAR, etc.