Crossword clues for tapering
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Taper \Ta"per\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Tapered; p. pr. & vb. n. Tapering.] To become gradually smaller toward one end; as, a sugar loaf tapers toward one end.
Tapering \Ta"per*ing\, a. Becoming gradually smaller toward one end. -- Ta"per*ing*ly, adv.
Wiktionary
n. A tapered shape. vb. (present participle of taper English)
WordNet
adj. gradually narrowed toward a point; "a tall tapering spire" [syn: tapered]
becoming gradually narrower; "long tapering fingers"; "trousers with tapered legs" [syn: tapered, narrowing]
gradually decreasing until little remains [syn: dwindling, tapering off]
n. the act of gradually lowering the size or amount; "the doctor prescribed the tapering of the dose"
Wikipedia
In the context of sports, tapering refers to the practice of reducing exercise in the days just before an important competition. Tapering is customary in many endurance sports, such as long-distance running and swimming. For many athletes, a significant period of tapering is essential for optimal performance. The tapering period frequently lasts as much as a week or more.
This article is about the use of the word "tapering" in sports. For the "tapering" in the 2010-2014 unconventional monetary policy in the United States, please see Quantitative easing.
In mathematics, physics, and theoretical computer graphics, tapering is a kind of shape deformation. Just as an affine transformation, such as scaling or shearing, is a first-order model of shape deformation, there also exist higher-order deformations such as tapering, twisting, and bending. Tapering can be thought of as non-constant scaling by a given tapering function. The resultant deformations can be linear or nonlinear.
To create a nonlinear taper, instead of scaling in x and y for all z with constants as in:
q= \begin{bmatrix}a & 0 & 0 \\ 0 & b & 0 \\ 0 & 0 & 1 \end{bmatrix} p,
let a and b be functions of z so that:
q= \begin{bmatrix}a(p_z) & 0 & 0 \\ 0 & b(p_z) & 0 \\ 0 & 0 & 1 \end{bmatrix} p.
An example of a linear taper is a(z) = α + αz, and a quadratic taper a(z) = α + αz + αz.
As another example, if the parametric equation of a cube were given by ƒ(t) = (x(t), y(t), z(t)), a nonlinear taper could be applied so that the cube's volume slowly decreases (or tapers) as the function moves in the positive z direction. For the given cube, an example of a nonlinear taper along z would be if, for instance, the function T(z) = 1/(a + bt) were applied to the cube's equation such that ƒ(t) = (T(z)x(t), T(z)y(t), T(z)z(t)), for some real constants a and b.
Usage examples of "tapering".
The bunches of agrimony hanging head downward inside the warm dark cave were an infusion of the dried flowers and leaves useful for bruises and injuries to internal organs, as much as they were tall slender perennials with toothed leaves and tiny yellow flowers growing on tapering spikes.
Between the thick cords were dark anfractuous clefts five times his height, tapering away to knife-thin fissures.
The water splashed down his legs to his hooves and flowed on out of the baobab tree, tapering off as its volume diminished.
Till the luminous cinctures of melody up from the ground Arose as the shaft of a tapering tower of sound -- Arose for an unstricken full-finished Babel of sound.
In addition to the features which I have already described, the beast was equipped with a massive tail about six feet in length, quite round where it joined the body, but tapering to a flat, thin blade toward the end, which trailed at right angles to the ground.
For some seventy feet it rose a beautiful tapering brown pillar without a single branch, but at that height splendid dark green boughs, which, looked at from below, had the appearance of gigantic fern-leaves, sprang out horizontally from the trunk, projecting right over the house and flower-garden, to both of which they furnished a grateful proportion of shade, without -- being so high up -- offering any impediment to the passage of light and air.
Kritians dearly love, their rounded, tapering figures painted bright red and blue, with gilded capitals.
There was a couch in gimbals, and there were control pedestals rooted in the tapering hull and converging on the couch.
Each radiating facet was a hexahedron tapering to a point, and all were of different thicknesses and lengths.
When the bee begins to gnaw the labellum, he unavoidably touches a tapering projection, which, when touched, transmits a vibration which ruptures a membrane, which sets free a spring by which a mass of pollen is shot, with unerring aim, over the back of the bee, who then departs on his errand of fertilization.
The maxillary and premaxillary bones are much produced, forming a rostrum tapering, narrow, compressed and much arched in the right whales.
Her eyes were black and very frank, her lips thin and slightly severe, her nose regular and slightly inclined to the left, and her hands ringless, large, and almost like those of a man, but with finely tapering fingers.
The blade was long, tapering, and curved, and there appeared to be runic lettering along the edge.
Malvern emptied the tapering trunk, converting it into an open-air rumble seat for Weeble, who bounded in like a jet-propelled fifty-liter drum.
About three feet long, blade broad on top and not tapering much to a bluntish point, it had a short, straight iron guard and a wide, flat-bottomed pommel rounded like a scoop of ice cream.