cusp (redirected from cusped)

cusp

In architecture, the intersection of lobed or scalloped forms, particularly in arches (cusped arches) and tracery. Thus the three lobes of a trefoil (cloverleaf form) are separated by three cusps. Cusped forms appear in early Islamic work and were especially common in the Moorish architecture of North Africa and Spain. The form was adopted wholeheartedly by European Gothic architecture.

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cusp

1. Dentistry any of the small elevations on the grinding or chewing surface of a tooth

2. Anatomy any of the triangular flaps of a heart valve

3. Geometry a point at which two arcs of a curve intersect and at which the two tangents are coincident

4. Architect a carving at the meeting place of two arcs

5. Astronomy either of the points of a crescent moon or of a satellite or inferior planet in a similar phase

6. Astrology any division between houses or signs of the zodiac

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cusp [kəsp]

(anatomy)

A pointed or rounded projection on the masticating surface of a tooth.

One of the flaps of a heart valve.

(architecture)

A pointed projection or peak created by the intersection of two arcs.

(geology)

One of a series of low, crescent-shaped mounds of beach material separated by smoothly curved, shallow troughs spaced at more or less regular intervals along and generally perpendicular to the beach face. Also known as beach cusp.

(geophysics)

Any of the funnel-shaped regions in the magnetosphere extending from the front magnetopause to the polar ionosphere, and filled with solar wind plasma.

(mathematics)

A singular point of a curve at which the limits of the tangents of the portions of the curve on either side of the point coincide. Also known as spinode.