sesquialterate

English

Etymology

From Latin sesquialter (“one and a half times”).

Adjective

sesquialterate (not comparable)

  1. (mathematics, archaic) In a ratio of three to two, or of one a half to one.
    9 and 6 are in a sesquialterate ratio.
    • 1818, Iamblichus, Life of Pythagoras Tr. Thomas Taylor (page 328)
      the ratio of 3 to 2, which is sesquialter, forms the symphony diapente […]
    • 1859, Frances Power Cobbe, An Essay on Intuitive Morals: Being an Attempt to Popularize Ethical Science (page 84)
      People ignorant of geometry did not know the sesquialterate ratio of the sphere, cylinder, and cone, and therefor no man could know it […]
    • 1888, Sir Isaac Newton, Portsmouth Collection of Books and Papers Written or Belonging to Sir Isaac Newton (page xviii)
      from Kepler's Rule of the periodical times of the Planets being in a sesquialterate proportion of their distances from the centers of their orbs I deduced […]

Synonyms
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