Sawtooths

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A series of jagged peaks or notches resembling the teeth of a saw, often used to describe shapes or patterns in graphs and design
2. A pattern characterized by sharp, angular rises and falls, frequently found in signals or waveforms, akin to the profile of a saw's edge
3. Referring to edges or outlines that exhibit a zigzag pattern, mimicking the serrated design of saw teeth in both natural and artificial contexts

Etymology: "Sawtooths" is the plural of "sawtooth", a compound formed from "saw" and "tooth". The image is literal: the zigzag edge of a saw's blade, with its repeated points and notches, gave the name to any object with a similar profile. The noun is then extended to waveforms and signals whose rises and falls form the same repeating angular shape. The plural simply refers to several such patterns or several such shapes at once, so an engineer might speak of "sawtooths" in a graph of voltage over time. Its meaning depends on the saw's tooth shape rather than on any figurative leap, which makes it one of the more transparent compounds in technical English.

Synonyms: jagged edges, serrations, zigzags

Antonyms: smoothness, flatness, evenness