degree

degree

1. a stage in a scale of relative amount or intensity

2. an academic award conferred by a university or college on successful completion of a course or as an honorary distinction (honorary degree)

3. Med any of three categories of seriousness of a burn

4. (in the US) any of the categories into which a crime is divided according to its seriousness

5. Music any note of a diatonic scale relative to the other notes in that scale

6. a unit of temperature on a specified scale

7. Geometry a measure of angle equal to one three-hundred-and-sixtieth of the angle traced by one complete revolution of a line about one of its ends.

8. Geography

a. a unit of latitude or longitude, divided into 60 minutes, used to define points on the earth's surface or on the celestial sphere

b. a point or line defined by units of latitude and/or longitude.

9. a unit on any of several scales of measurement, as for alcohol content or specific gravity.

10. Maths

a. the highest power or the sum of the powers of any term in a polynomial or by itself

b. the greatest power of the highest order derivative in a differential equation

11. degrees of frost See frost

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

Degree

(religion, spiritualism, and occult)

A degree is 1/360 of the circumference of a circle. The number 360 may come from older notions about the year being 360 days in length.

The Astrology Book, Second Edition © 2003 Visible Ink Press®. All rights reserved.

degree

[di′grē]

(chemistry)

Any one of several units for measuring hardness of water, such as the English or Clark degree, the French degree, and the German degree.

(fluid mechanics)

One of the units in any of various scales of specific gravity, such as the Baumé scale.

(mathematics)

A unit for measurement of plane angles, equal to 1/360 of a complete revolution, or 1/90 of a right angle. Symbolized °.

For a term in one variable, the exponent of that variable.

For a term in several variables, the sum of the exponents of its variables.

For a polynomial, the degree of the highest-degree term.

For a differential equation, the greatest power to which the highest-order derivative occurs.

For an algebraic curve defined by the polynomial equation ƒ(x,y) = 0, the degree of the polynomial ƒ(x,y).

For a vertex in a graph, the number of arcs which have that vertex as an end point.

For an extension of a field, the dimension of the extension field as a vector space over the original field.

(thermodynamics)

One of the units of temperature or temperature difference in any of various temperature scales, such as the Celsius, Fahrenheit, and Kelvin temperature scales (the Kelvin degree is now known as the kelvin).

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

degree

1. A step, as of a stair.

2. A stair, or set of steps.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Architecture and Construction. Copyright © 2003 by McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

degree

The degree (or valency) of a node in a graph is the number of edges joined to it.

This article is provided by FOLDOC - Free Online Dictionary of Computing (foldoc.org)

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Degree

 

in music, any of the tones or notes in a scale or tuning system. European music of the 17th through the 19th century was based on a system of 12 degrees, in which major and minor diatonic scales predominated; chromatic scales, however, were also used. The 12 degrees were divided into two groups: seven degrees corresponding in C major to the white keys on the piano and five degrees corresponding to the black keys. In 20th-century music all 12 degrees are frequently used without such division, yielding a chromatic scale. Other systems include the pentatonic scale, with five degrees, and microtonal scales with 24 or 36 degrees.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.