node

English

noun
Definitions
  • A knot, knob, protuberance or swelling.
  • (astronomy) The point where the orbit of a planet, as viewed from the Sun, intersects the ecliptic. The ascending and descending nodes refer respectively to the points where the planet moves from South to North and N to S; their respective symbols are ☊ and ☋.
  • (botany) A leaf node.
  • (networking) A computer or other device attached to a network.
  • (engineering) The point at which the lines of a funicular machine meet from different angular directions; — called also knot.
  • (geometry) The point at which a curve crosses itself, being a double point of the curve. See crunode (crunode) and acnode (acnode).
  • (geometry) A similar point on a surface, where there is more than one tangent-plane.
  • (graph theory) A vertex or a leaf in a graph of a network, or other element in a data structure.
  • (medicine) A hard concretion or incrustation which forms upon bones attacked with rheumatism, gout, or syphilis; sometimes also, a swelling in the neighborhood of a joint.
  • (physics) A point along a standing wave where the wave has minimal amplitude.
  • (rare) The knot, intrigue, or plot of a dramatic work.
  • (technical) A hole in the gnomon of a sundial, through which passes the ray of light which marks the hour of the day, the parallels of the Sun's declination, his place in the ecliptic, etc.
  • (computational linguistics) The word of interest in a KWIC, surrounded by left and right cotexts.

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English node borrowed from Latin nōdus (bond, a knot, knob).

Origin

Latin

nōdus

Gloss

bond, a knot, knob

Timeline

Distribution of cognates by language

Geogrpahic distribution of cognates

Cognates and derived terms