About
The character "椭", meaning ellipse or oval, has a history where its form and semantic focus shifted significantly. Its traditional form, "橢", was originally composed of the wood radical 木 combined with the phonetic component 隋, and it once referred to a specific type of tree or perhaps a wooden vessel with an elongated shape. Over time, the meaning specialized and moved away from its arboreal origins to denote the geometric shape of an oval, a transition where the wood radical became semantically disconnected. The modern simplified form "椭" retains the phonetic component 隋 but replaces the wood radical with the left radical 阝, which often relates to mounds or terrain, a change that further severs the link to the character's original meaning while streamlining its structure for writing.
Etymology Hide
Example Sentences Hide
这是一个椭圆。
盘子是椭圆形的。
他画了一个标准的椭圆。
地球的轨道是近似椭圆的。
这个椭球体的体积很难计算。
设计师采用了椭圆柱作为支撑结构。
该椭圆的焦点位于其长轴的两端。
通过复杂的方程式可以描述这个椭球面的特性。