nounplural noun vertices/-təˌsēz/ , plural noun vertexes

• 1The highest point; the top or apex.

  ‘But what vertices of anxiety lie behind the gentle opposition of town and country, youth and age when Janice arrives in Dulwich.’

  More example sentences

  • ‘Balancing on the vertex requires enormous training in concentration.’
  • ‘The game begins at one particular vertex, corresponding to the starting position of the game.’
  • ‘Now in a single move a coin must slide between adjacent vertices.’

  Synonyms

  apex, peak, tip, top, mountaintop, summit, pinnacle, crest, brow, crown, height, highest point

  View synonyms

  1. 1.1Anatomy The crown of the head.
     ‘This will protect the perineum and assist in extension of the head as the vertex passes the symphysis.’
     More example sentences

     • ‘As the head clears the pubic symphysis, the vertex is pulled upward at an angle of 45 degrees to the floor.’
     • ‘She has been left with extensive scars and areas of alopecia on the vertex, occipital, and right parietal regions of her head.’
     • ‘The Sahasrara or crown chakra is related to the pituitary gland and externalizes at the vertex of the scalp.’
     • ‘This is followed by thinning over the vertex and then, eventually, complete loss of hair over the crown.’
• 2Geometry
  Each angular point of a polygon, polyhedron, or other figure.

  ‘Einstein observes that the Menelaus theorem is symmetric with respect to the vertices of the triangle.’

  More example sentences

  • ‘Now add parallels beyond those in the same direction, through the vertices of the largest triangle.’
  • ‘He also found another solution where the three bodies were at the vertices of an equilateral triangle.’
  • ‘The vertices were then connected to their neighbours to create the polygons.’
  • ‘The frequency of each morph increases from the one side of the triangle to the opposite vertex.’

  1. 2.1A meeting point of two lines that form an angle.
     ‘Bond angles are calculated using the central atom as the vertex of the bond angle.’
     More example sentences

     • ‘An undirected edge connecting these two vertices indicates this relationship.’
     • ‘Two adjacent vertices must be of the same colour.’
     • ‘In wild-type flies, the head vertex is symmetrical and composed of three distinct domains.’
     • ‘The vertex representing k is the final state of the kth chain.’
  2. 2.2The point at which an axis meets a curve or surface.
     ‘Each vertex unit can have one vector and one scalar operation in flight simultaneously.’
     More example sentences

     • ‘A graph is a mathematical structure consisting of vertices connected by edges.’
     • ‘A coin may only be placed by dragging the cursor along an edge from one vertex to another.’
     • ‘The three 6-cycles pairwise intersect in two non-adjacent vertices.’
     • ‘Think of the two islands and the mainland as vertices with the paths between these nodes called arcs.’