osculant

== English == === Etymology === From Latin osculans, osculantis, present participle of osculari (“to kiss”). See osculate. === Pronunciation === === Adjective === osculant (not comparable) (Can we verify(+) this sense?) Kissing; hence, touching or meeting; clinging. (zoology) Adhering closely; applied to certain creeping animals, such as caterpillars. (biology) Intermediate between two genera, groups, families, etc., and having some of the characteristics of each; interosculant. (Bantu linguistics) Intermediate between multiple potentially reconstructible protoforms, but having a mismatch in semantics or morphology that cannot be explained through regular patterns of change. (geometry) Tangent, touching at a single point. === Noun === osculant (plural osculants) (geometry) The point at which two tangent curves touch. (algebra) The condition that the solution to a set of simultaneous quantics, is also the solution of the corresponding set of tangential quantics. ==== Related terms ==== osculance === Noun === osculant (plural osculants) (mathematics) a form of tacinvariant of hypersurfaces that have a point in common ==== Synonyms ==== tacinvariant === Anagrams === Lacounts, consulta