Standard Lemma guide

arctangent

noun · 2 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.

No pronunciation record was provided for this word.

1

noun

Meaning 1

Any of several single-valued or multivalued functions that are inverses of the tangent function. Symbol: arctan, tan−1

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Topics: mathematics, sciences, trigonometry

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

2

noun

Meaning 2

the inverse function of the tangent; the angle that has a tangent equal to a given number

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: arc tangent, arctan, inverse tangent

Antonyms: none provided

Broader terms: trigonometric function, circular function

History

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h2erkw- Proto-Indo-European *h2erkwos Proto-Italic *arkuos Latin arcusder. English arc- Proto-Indo-European *teh2g- Proto-Italic *tangō Latin tangō Latin tangēns Latin tangentembor. English tangent English arctangent From arc- + tangent.

Across languages

Translations

21 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Asturian: arcotanxente — inverse of tangent function
  • Catalan: arc tangent — inverse of tangent function
  • Chinese Mandarin: 反正切 (fǎnzhèngqiē) — inverse of tangent function
  • Czech: arkustangens — inverse of tangent function
  • Dutch: arctangens — inverse of tangent function
  • Finnish: arkustangentti — inverse of tangent function
  • French: arc tangente — inverse of tangent function
  • Galician: arco tanxente — inverse of tangent function
  • German: Arcustangens — inverse of tangent function
  • Hungarian: arkusztangens — inverse of tangent function
  • Italian: arcotangente — inverse of tangent function
  • Japanese: アークタンジェント (ākutanjento) — inverse of tangent function
  • Japanese: 逆正接関数 — inverse of tangent function
  • Khmer: អាកតង់សង់ (ʼaktângsâng) — inverse of tangent function
  • Korean: 아크탄젠트 (akeutanjenteu) — inverse of tangent function
  • Korean: 역삼각 함수 (yeoksamgak hamsu) — inverse of tangent function
  • Portuguese: arco tangente — inverse of tangent function
  • Romanian: arctangentă — inverse of tangent function
  • Russian: аркта́нгенс (arktángens) — inverse of tangent function
  • Spanish: arcotangente — inverse of tangent function
  • Tamil: தொடுவளை நேர்மாற்று (toṭuvaḷai nērmāṟṟu) — inverse of tangent function