What is "affine"

Affine \Af*fine"\, v. t. [F. affiner to refine; ? (L. ad) + fin fine. See Fine.] To refine. [Obs.]
--Holland.

1. 1 (context mathematics English) Assigning finite values to finite quantities. 2 (context mathematics English) Of a function, expressible as $f(vec\; x)=\; A\; vec\; x\; +\; vec\; b$ (which is not linear, but is similar). 3 (context mathematics English) Of or pertaining to a transformation that maps parallel lines to parallel lines and finite points to finite points. 4 (context comparable chemistry English) Having mutual affinity, of two materials. n. (context genealogy English) A relative by marriage. v

2. To refine.

adj. related by marriage [syn: affinal]

n. (anthropology) kin by marriage

Affine may refer to:

• Affine cipher, a special case of the more general substitution cipher
• Affine combination, a certain kind of constrained linear combination
• Affine connection, a connection on the tangent bundle of a differentiable manifold
• Affine differential geometry, a geometry that studies differential invariants under the action of the special affine group
• Affine geometry, a geometry characterized by parallel lines
• Affine group, the group of all invertible affine transformations from any affine space over a field K into itself
• Affine logic, a substructural logic whose proof theory rejects the structural rule of contraction
• Affine representation, a continuous group homomorphism whose values are automorphisms of an affine space
• Affine scheme, the spectrum of prime ideals of a commutative ring
• Affine space, an abstract structure that generalises the affine-geometric properties of Euclidean space
• Affine transformation, a transformation that preserves the relation of parallelism between lines