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 and 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 […]

Alternative forms
  • sesqui-alterate

Synonyms
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