Ver"te*bro- (?). A combining form used in anatomy to indicate
connection with, or relation to, a vertebra, vertebræ, or vertebral
column; as in vertebrocostal.
Ver"te*bro-il"i*ac (?), a. (Anat.) Iliolumbar.
Ver"tex (?), n.; pl. Vertexes (#), L. Vertices (#). [L. vertex, -icis,
a whirl, top of the head, top, summit, from vertere to turn. See Verse,
and cf. Vortex.] A turning point; the principal or highest point; top;
summit; crown; apex. Specifically: —
(a) (Anat.) The top, or crown, of the head.
(b) (Anat.) The zenith, or the point of the heavens directly overhead.
(c) (Math.) The point in any figure opposite to, and farthest from, the
base; the terminating point of some particular line or lines in a
figure or a curve; the top, or the point opposite the base.
The principal vertex of a conic section is, in the parabola, the vertex
of the axis of the curve: in the ellipse, either extremity of either
axis, but usually the left-hand vertex of the transverse axis; in the
hyperbola, either vertex, but usually the right- hand vertex of the
transverse axis.
Vertex of a curve (Math.), the point in which the axis of the curve
intersects it. — Vertex of an angle (Math.), the point in which the
sides of the angle meet. — Vertex of a solid, or of a surface of
revolution (Math.), the point in which the axis pierces the surface.