How to Use hypotenuse in a Sentence

hypotenuse

noun
  • The length of one side of the slice is the hypotenuse of this triangle.
    — Rhett Allain, WIRED, 20 July 2011
  • The quantity c is the length of the longest side, called the hypotenuse.
    — Leila Sloman, Scientific American, 10 Apr. 2023
  • The lesson was that the square of the hypotenuse, or longest side, is equal to the sum of the squares of the other sides.
    — Mark Barna, Discover Magazine, 16 Dec. 2022
  • When the triangle has a right angle, the square of the hypotenuse is always equal to the sum of the squares of the two shorter sides.
    — Courtney Linder, Popular Mechanics, 2 June 2020
  • This car only looks like a fastback from 270 degrees, thanks to the twin hypotenuse of roof pillars.
    — Dan Neil, WSJ, 12 Oct. 2017
  • The hypotenuse will reach diagonally between these two sides.
    — Leila Sloman, Scientific American, 10 Apr. 2023
  • By way of analogy, in flat space, the hypotenuse of a right triangle is always a2 + b2 = c2.
    — Daniel Garisto, Quanta Magazine, 7 Nov. 2025
  • More Math All of these points will follow the same Pythagorean formula, where the height of the rung is the hypotenuse.
    — Caroline Delbert, Popular Mechanics, 11 Mar. 2020
  • Those aren’t scientific concepts with formulas, like gravity or the length of a hypotenuse.
    — Derek Thompson, The Atlantic, 9 Dec. 2017
  • The triangle has a base 4 units long, a vertical side 3 units long and a hypotenuse 5 units long going from upper left to lower right.
    — Quanta Magazine, 17 Jan. 2020
  • If the two legs of a right triangle each have the same rational length, Hippasus is said to have shown, its hypotenuse cannot have a rational length.
    — Quanta Magazine, 9 July 2013
  • Witness file storage, which are fitted inside the unit one evening just as the building is closing, with great effort and much fighting, owing to the hypotenuse problem, which is often forgotten.
    — Rafil Kroll-Zaidi, Harper’s Magazine , 7 Dec. 2021
  • This equation also represents a fundamental property of right triangles — that the square of the longest side, or hypotenuse, is the sum of the squares of the other two shorter sides.
    — Kenneth Chang, New York Times, 29 Aug. 2017
  • The man addressed me over the cliff of his shoulder—talked down to me in the same condescending way Mister Hughes explained polynomials and hypotenuses.
    — Douglas Stuart, The New Yorker, 6 Jan. 2020
  • His theorem, a part of Euclidean geometry taught in many high school math classes, states that the hypotenuse of a right triangle (the side opposite the right angle) equals the sum of the squares of the other two sides.
    — Kevin Kelleher, Fortune, 21 June 2018
  • Suddenly, with Werner looming large in his disapproval and Lucas snaking his way to the pragmatic prof’s good graces, maladroit Marguerite is left as the square on the hypotenuse.
    — Jessica Kiang, Variety, 15 June 2023
  • The new 2,700-square-foot space feels like a geometric funhouse — quadrilaterals of wood overhead, an enveloping half-circle over the open kitchen, and the hypotenuse of the bar slanting through the lounge.
    — Tan Vinh, The Seattle Times, 27 Apr. 2017

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'hypotenuse.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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