Cartesian

adjective

Car·​te·​sian kär-ˈtē-zhən How to pronounce Cartesian (audio)
: of or relating to René Descartes or his philosophy
Cartesian noun
Cartesianism noun

Examples of Cartesian in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
While the motion of any real entities through the fabric of spacetime is limited by the speed of light in a vacuum, spacetime itself is not required to be flat and unchanging: like a three-dimensional Cartesian grid. Big Think, 20 June 2024 And soon enough, a much churchier view — Cartesian dualism — emerged. Sigal Samuel, Vox, 4 June 2024 Stretch performs Cartesian motions to move its gripper to a body-relative position using a good motion heuristic, which is to extend the arm as the last step. Evan Ackerman, IEEE Spectrum, 14 July 2020 The urban plan follows the Cartesian shape of an airplane. Clarissa Tossin, Los Angeles Times, 17 May 2023 The output of this process is then used as input to drive the end-pose of the robotic hands relative to the human hand movements, through a whole-body inverse kinematics process in the Cartesian space. Evan Ackerman, IEEE Spectrum, 31 Aug. 2018

Word History

Etymology

New Latin cartesianus, from Cartesius Descartes

First Known Use

1656, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of Cartesian was in 1656

Dictionary Entries Near Cartesian

Cite this Entry

“Cartesian.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Cartesian. Accessed 22 Nov. 2024.

Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!