altitude

From Middle English, borrowed from Latin altitūdō (“height”), from altus (“high”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈælt.ɪˌtjuːd/, /ˈælt.ɪˌt͡ʃuːd/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈælt.ɪˌtuːd/

altitude (countable and uncountable, plural altitudes)

1. The absolute height of a location, usually measured from sea level.

   As the altitude increases, the temperature gets lower, so remember to bring warm clothes to the mountains.

   • 2013 June 7, David Simpson, “Fantasy of navigation”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, page 36:

     Like most human activities, ballooning has sponsored heroes and hucksters and a good deal in between. For every dedicated scientist patiently recording atmospheric pressure and wind speed while shivering at high altitudes, there is a carnival barker with a bevy of pretty girls willing to dangle from a basket or parachute down to earth.

2. A vertical distance.
3. (geometry) The distance measured perpendicularly from a figure's vertex to the opposite side of the vertex.

   The perpendicular height of a triangle is known as its altitude.

4. (astronomy) The angular distance of a heavenly body above our Earth's horizon.
5. Height of rank or excellence; superiority.
   • 1704, [Jonathan Swift], A Tale of a Tub. […], London: […] John Nutt, […], →OCLC:

     Whoever has an ambition to be heard in a crowd, must press, and squeeze, and thrust, and climb, with indefatigable pains, till he has exalted himself to a certain degree of altitude above them.

6. (dated, in the plural) Elevation of spirits; heroics; haughty airs.
   • 1815 February 24, [Walter Scott], Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and Archibald Constable and Co., […], →OCLC:

     The man of law began to get into his altitudes.

   • 1748, [Samuel Richardson], Clarissa. Or, The History of a Young Lady: […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to VII), London: […] S[amuel] Richardson;  […], →OCLC:

     Is this deified passion , in its greatest altitudes , fitted to stand the day ?

7. Highest point or degree.
   • c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]:

     He is [proud] even to the altitude of his virtue.

8. (commutative algebra, dated, of a ring) Krull dimension.
9. (commutative algebra, of an ideal) Height.

• “altitude”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “altitude”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

• latitude

Borrowed from Latin altitūdō.

• IPA^(key): /al.ti.tyd/

• Audio

  (file)

altitude f (plural altitudes)

1. altitude

• haut

• “altitude”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Learned borrowing from Latin altitūdō.

altitude f (plural altitudes)

1. altitude

Borrowed from Latin altitūdō.

• Rhymes: (Brazil) -ud͡ʒi, (Portugal) -udɨ
• Hyphenation: al‧ti‧tu‧de

altitude f (plural altitudes)

1. altitude