Applicate

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. In geometry, a straight line drawn perpendicular to an axis or diameter, especially the vertical coordinate of a point in three-dimensional space
2. A term in coordinate geometry for a distance measured at right angles to a reference plane, such as the z-value locating a point in space
3. The perpendicular segment or coordinate used in analytic geometry to locate a point relative to a given line or plane

Etymology: "Applicate" is an English adjective meaning "applied" or "put to practical use," and its history runs through Latin in a fairly direct line. It was borrowed from Latin "applicatus," the past participle of "applicare," meaning "to attach" or "to apply," built from "ad-" ("to") and "plicare" ("to fold"). The underlying image is of folding one thing against another, a notion that sits behind many later senses of "apply." The English word came into use as a learned borrowing from Latin "applicat-," the stem of that same participle, in Middle English. Its exact later path is less certain: it may have arisen as a back-formation from "application," which reached English by a similar route, and a closely related verb form stands behind the adjective. Comparable forms appear in Spanish and Portuguese "aplicar" and Italian "applicare," which shows how widely the Latin verb spread across the Romance languages.