Dictionary:

eccentricity

  (ĕk'sĕn-trĭs'ĭ-tē)

1. 1. The quality of being eccentric.
   2. Deviation from the normal, expected, or established.
2. An example or instance of eccentric behavior.
3. Physics. The distance between the center of an eccentric and its axis.
4. Mathematics. The ratio of the distance of any point on a conic section from a focus to its distance from the corresponding directrix. This ratio is constant for any particular conic section.

noun

Peculiar behavior: idiosyncrasy, peculiarity, quirk, quirkiness, singularity. See usual/unusual.

Definition: bizarreness, unusualness
Antonyms: commonality, dullness, normality, regularness, standard, uniformity, usual, usualness

The measure of the degree of elongation of an ellipse. For example, a circle has an eccentricy of 0, and a parabola (an open figure) an eccentricity of 1.

n.

A method of distinction so cheap that fools employ it to accentuate their incapacity.

Quotes:

"You must not blame me if I do talk to the clouds." - Henry David Thoreau

"So long as a man rides his Hobby-Horse peaceably and quietly along the King's highway, and neither compels you or me to get up behind him -- pray, Sir, what have either you or I to do with it?" - Laurence Sterne

"Eccentricity is not, as dull people would have us believe, a form of madness. It is often a kind of innocent pride, and the man of genius and the aristocrat are frequently regarded as eccentrics because genius and aristocrat are entirely unafraid of and uninfluenced by the opinions and vagaries of the crowd." - Dame Edith Sitwell

"Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage which it contained." - John Stuart Mill

"The amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time." - John Stuart Mill

"The lunatic fringe wags the underdog." - H. L. Mencken

See more famous quotes about Eccentricity

Eccentricity may refer to:

• Eccentricity (behavior), unusual or odd behavior on the part of a person, as opposed to being "normal"
• Eccentricity (mathematics), a parameter associated with every conic section
• Eccentricity vector
• Eccentricity (graph theory) of a vertex in a graph
• Eccentric contraction, lengthening of muscle fibers
• Eccentric (mechanism), a wheel that rotates on an axle that is displaced from the focus of the circle described by the wheel
• Eccentric position of a surveying tripod to be able to measure hidden points
• Orbital eccentricity, in astrodynamics, calculated from orbital state vectors as an absolute value of eccentricity vector or using other methods based on orbital energy and angular momentum.
• Eccentric anomaly, the angle between the direction of periapsis and the current position of an object on its orbit.
• Eccentric (astronomy), a type of deferent, a circle or sphere used in obsolete astronomical systems to carry a planet around the Earth or Sun.

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