orthogonal
adjectiveUK /ɔːˈθɒɡ.ən.əl/
US /ɔːrˈθɑː.ɡən.əl/
Two lines are orthogonal when they meet at a perfect right angle, like the corner of a square.
The two walls of the room are orthogonal, meeting at a neat right angle.
RELATED WORDS
OTHER MEANINGS
2. Completely separate and not connected to each other.
The two research projects are orthogonal, so one does not affect the other.
3. In mathematics, having a dot product of zero.
These two vectors are orthogonal, so their dot product is zero.
4. In statistics, describing variables that are independent of each other.
The experiment was designed so that the two factors were orthogonal.