Also 5 coone, 6–7 con, 7 coane. [a. F. cône or ad. L. cōn-us cone, conical apex, a. Gr. κῶν-ος pine-cone, geometrical cone, conical apex, spinning-top, etc.]
I. The geometrical figure.
1. A solid figure or body, of which the base is a circle, and the summit a point, and every point in the intervening surface is in a straight line between the vertex and the circumference of the base.
Called a right circular cone when the vertex is on the perpendicular to the center of the base; an oblique cone, when it lies without it.
1570. Billingsley, Euclid, XI. xvi. 317. A cone is a solide or bodely figure which is made, when one of the sides of a rectangle triangle … which contayne the right angle, abiding fixed, the triangle is moued about.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., V. ix. 247. His face was radiant, and dispersing beames like many hornes and cones about his head.
1681. Colvil, Whigs Supplic. (1751), 19. The shape and fashion of his head, Was like a con, or pyramid.
1781. Cowper, Table-t., 53. Such reasoning falls like an inverted cone Wanting its proper base to stand upon.
1827. Hutton, Course Math., I. 358. Any cone is the third part of a cylinder, or of a prism, of equal base and altitude.
b. In mod. Geom., a solid generated by a straight line which always passes through a fixed point called the vertex, and describes any fixed curve (not necessarily a circle).
1865. W. S. Aldis, Solid Geom., § 34.
1877. B. Williamson, Integr. Calc., 295. The equation … represents a cone such that the moment of inertia is the same for each of its edges. Such a cone is called an equimomental cone of the body.
c. A conical mass of any substance.
1577. Dee, Relat. Spirits, I. (1659), 355. The next stream … moveth from the 4 sides ward, and make 4 Triangles, or rather Cones, of water.
1674. Petty, Disc. Dupl. Proportion, 113. Bullets commonly beat out a Cone of Wall, whose Vertex is in the Bullets Entry.
1727. Swift, Gulliver, III. ii. 186. The Servants cut our Bread into Cones, Cylinders, Parallelograms, and several other mathematical Figures.
1813. Coleridge, Remorse, V. The life within one, It sinks and wavers like this cone of flame.
1874. Dawkins, Cave Hunt., ii. 64. The shaft stands on a cone of dripstone.
fig. 1641. Milton, Ch. Govt., vi. 128. Their hierarchies acuminating still higher and higher in a cone of Prelaty.
2. Optics. a. Cone of rays: a pencil of rays of light diverging from an illuminating point and falling upon a surface. [= F. cône de lumière.]
1706. in Phillips.
1831. Brewster, Optics, ii. 17. The mirror receives only … a cone of rays … whose base is the circular mirror.
1833. N. Arnott, Physics, II. (ed. 5), 200. The innumerable rays of light, issuing from any point at c, towards any surface in the situation ab, are said to form a cone or pencil of diverging light.
1875. Fortnum, Majolica, iii. 27. The sun pouring down a cone of yellow rays.
b. Cone of shade (in Astr.): the conical shadow projected into space by a planet on the side turned from the sun. (cf. L. coni umbræ (Lucr.)].
[1667. Milton, P. L., IV. 776. Now had night measur’d with her shaddowie Cone Half way up Hill this vast Sublunar Vault.
1762. Falconer, Shipwr., I. 141. Night’s shadowy cone reluctant melts away.]
1854. Tomlinson, Arago’s Astron., 147. The moon’s cone of shade.
1879. Lockyer, Elem. Astron., 101. The shape of the shadow [of the moon] is in fact, that of a cone—hence the term ‘cone of shadow.’
II. Applied to various cone-shaped objects.
Sense 3 is the original in Greek, whence the geometrical sense was taken; it is, in its Eng. history, quite independent of sense 1, and perh. the source of 4; the later senses of this group are popular or technical applications of 1.
3. The more or less conical fruit of pines and firs; a dry scaly multiple fruit, formed by hard persistent imbricated scales covering naked seeds; a strobile.
1562. Turner, Herbal, II. 87 a. Πιτυς … hathe a lesse con or nut or appell [than πευκη].
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, VI. lxxxvii. The fruite of the Pine is called in Greke κῶνος: in Latine, Conus, and Nux Pinea: in Englishe, a Cone, or Pine Apple.
1640. Parkinson, Theat. Bot., 1532. It [cedar] beareth cones that grow upright, like as the Firre doth.
1664. Evelyn, Sylva, xxi. The Kernels, and Nuts, which may be gotten out of their Cones and Clogs.
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist. (1776), V. 200. The larger feeds upon the cones of the pine-tree.
1821. Shelley, Adonais, xxxiii. A light spear topped with a cypress cone.
1863. C. A. Johns, Home Walks, 63. The season when the cones of the Scotch fir split and discharge their seed.
1875. Bennett & Dyer, Sachs’ Bot., 453. In order not to introduce confusion into the definition of a flower, the whole of what is found on the axis, in other words, the whole cone, must be considered a single flower.
4. A cocoon, ? Obs.
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist. (1776), VIII. 51. The cone on which it [the silkworm] spins, is formed for covering it … in the aurelia state.
1813. Bingley, Anim. Biog. (ed. 4), I. 44. Some of them spin webs or cones, in which they enclose themselves.
1873. Browning, Red Cott. Nt.-Cap, 280. Though she have … spun a cradle-cone through which she pricks Her passage, and proves peacock-butterfly.
5. Conchol. A marine shell of the genus Conus, or family Conidæ, of Gastropods; also called cone-shell. [F. cône.]
1770. Lister, Conchol. (ed. Huddesford), Index, 31. Cone Shell. 1 Black Tiger Cone … 7 The Girdle or Bastard Cone Shell.
1854. Woodward, Mollusca, III. (1856), 353. Since the period of the English chalk-formation, there have been living … Cones and Olives in the London Basin.
1860. L. Reeve, Elem. Conchol., I. 7. The inner spiral partitions of a Cone in an early stage of growth, are thick and solid.
6. A cone-shaped building enclosing a glass-furnace, tile-kiln, or the like. b. a conical architectural structure.
1791. Gentl. Mag., LXI. II. 1054. A newly-finished glass-house … the cone being 120 feet in height, suddenly fell.
1873. Rossetti, Burden of Nineveh. Since those thy temples, court and cone, Rose far in desert history.
1875. Ure, Dict. Arts, II. 655. The crown-glass furnace … is an oblong square, built in the centre of a brick cone.
7. A cone-shaped mountain-top or peak; esp. a volcanic peak, formed by the accumulation of ejected material round the crater.
Applied as a proper name to peaks of the Rocky Mountains; e.g., Clayton Cone (Colorado), Lone Cone (Idaho).
1830. Lyell, Princ. Geol., I. 327. The … cones of single eruption near Clermont in Auvergne.
1852. Conybeare & H., St. Paul (1862), II. xxiii. 370. They would see on the left the volcanic cone and smoke of Stromboli.
1860. Tyndall, Glac., I. ii. 21. At a distance, was the grand cone of the Weisshorn.
8. Mech. Applied to various cone-shaped parts of apparatus.
a. A cone-shaped drum, used for communicating different speeds to a lathe, etc. b. In Spinning, one of the taper drums in the head-stock of a mule, called the backing-off and drawing-up cones, respectively. c. The vent-plug which is screwed into the barrel of a fire-arm.
1832. G. R. Porter, Porcelain & Gl., 49. When the strap takes its position on the largest part of [the driving cone], it will apply to the smallest part of the driven cone, and the speed of the lathe will be at its maximum. The position of the strap upon the cone is regulated at pleasure by a winch.
1835. Ure, Philos. Manuf., 161. When the wool has arrived by a spiral circulation near the base of the cone, it is deposited upon an endless apron. Ibid. (1875), Dict. Arts, III. 607, s.v. Pottery, The apex of the one cone corresponds to the base of the other, which allows the strap to retain the same degree of tension, while it is made to traverse horizontally, in order to vary the speed of the lathe at pleasure.
9. Meteorol. A cone-shaped vessel, hoisted as a foul-weather-signal.
1875. Chamb. Jrnl., CXXXIII. 8. A cone hoisted with the point upwards denotes an approaching wind veering round from the north-west by north to the south-east.
1882. Daily News, 30 Dec., 3/6 (The weather). The south cone is still up in the west, south, and east, and the north cone was hoisted in the north this afternoon.
10. Phys. One of the minute cone-shaped bodies that form, with the ‘rods,’ the bacillary layer of the retina.
1867. J. Marshall, Phys., I. 540. The external layer … consists of a stratum of evenly-disposed, transparent, colourless, rods … intermixed with other larger bodies, named cones.
1879. Macm. Mag., 131/1. That the layer of rods and cones is the part of the eye in which waves of ether are converted into sensations of light and colour has long been known.
11. Short for CONE-WHEAT.
1826. W. Cobbett, Rural Rides (1885), II. 191. It is the white cone that Mr. Budd sows.
III. A conical apex or point.
12. The conical top of a helmet or other head-piece. [So. Gr. κῶνος, L. cōnus.]
1603. B. Jonson, Jas. I’s Entert., Wks. (ed. Rtldg.), 532/1. A hat of delicate wool, whose top ended in a cone, and was thence called apex, according to that of Lucan.
1623. Bingham, Xenophon, 88. Leather head-peeces … in the middest whereof ariseth a Cone resembling the forme of a Tyara.
1738. Glover, Leonidas, III. 304. A pointed casque O’er each grim visage rear’d its iron cone.
1870. Bryant, Homer, I. IV. 128. He smote him on the helmet’s cone.
† 13. The apex of the heart. Obs.
1615. Crooke, Body of Man, 363. Through the outward surface of the heart euen to the Cone or point thereof.
1684. Boyle, Porousn. Anim. & Solid Bod., v. 48. The motions of the Cone, as they call it, or Mucro of the Heart.
a. 1711. Ken, Hymnotheo, Poet. Wks. 1721, III. 91. Down to the Cone of the Youth’s open Heart.
† 14. transf. An apex or vertex, as of a cone or pyramid; a point at which lines converge. Obs.
1611. Cotgr., Angle, an angle, cone, or corner.
1635. Austin, Medit., 57. It is the Top of this Triangle, the very Cone of this Pyramis.
a. 1641. Spelman, Anc. Govt. Eng. (R.). As … each side of an arch descendeth alike from the coane or top point.
1711. F. Fuller, Med. Gymn., 12. The Blood-Vessels … all terminate in a Cone.
† b. Her. Each of the angular divisions of a shield formed by a number of lines (e.g., 12) radiating from the center; the central point in which these meet; any point (e.g., at the center of the base, where similar angular divisions meet). Obs. (App. the earliest use in English.)
1486. Bk. St. Albans, Her., E iv b. The lawist corner or the coone of tharmys that is to say the lawyst poynt of the shelde … In all armys contrari conyt all the conys … mete to gedyr conally in the middis of the shelde. Ibid., E v a. All the colouris of theys armys meete to gedir at oon coone, that is to say at the myddyst poyntt of the shelde. Ibid., E v b. Now folowyth of certan armys in the wich iij. pilis mete to gedyr in oon coone.
IV. 15. attrib. and Comb., as cone-bearing, -billed, -like, -shaped adjs.; cone-bit, a conical boring-bit; cone-compasses, a pair of compasses with a cone or bullet on one leg, to set in a hole; cone-flower, a name for the genus Rudbeckia; purple cone-flower, the genus Echinacea; cone-gamba, an organ-stop with conical pipes; cone-gear, a method of transmitting motion, by means of two cones rolling together; cone-granule, a corpuscle connected with a cone of the retina; cone-head, a garden name for Strobilanthes; cone-in-cone, a peculiar geological structure, presenting the appearance of a number of cones one packed inside another; cone-joint, a strong pipe-joint, tapering from the center to the two ends each of which is inserted into the end of one of the pipes; cone-nose, a name for the hemipterous Insect genus Conorhinus; † cone-nut = CONE 3; hence † cone-nut-bearing adj.; cone-plate (see quot.); cone-pulley, a pulley shaped like a truncated cone, or one consisting of sheaves of different diameters, for imparting different speeds to a lathe, etc.; cone-seat, a piece of iron forming a seat for the ‘cone’ in fire-arms; cone-shell = CONE 5; cone tree, a coniferous tree, a conifer; cone-valve, a hollow valve with a conical face; cone-wheel, a wheel shaped like a truncated cone, for transmitting a variable or adjustable motion to another wheel. Also CONE-WHEAT, CONES.
1859. W. S. Coleman, Woodlands, 37. There are several other *cone-bearing trees.
1882. Proc. Berw. Nat. Club, IX. 549. The cone-bearing Araucaria.
1857. Gray, Bot. North. U. S., 214. Echinacea, *Purple Cone-flower.
1879. C. Pickering, Chron. Hist. Plants, 941. Rudbeckia laciniata of North-east America, A *cone flower.
1881. C. A. Edwards, Organs, 133. Messrs. Hill and Son have a stop … named the *‘Cone Gamba,’ which they frequently use in their organs.
1665. J. Webb, Stone-Heng (1725), 206. A *Cone-like Heap of Pibble Stones.
1562. Turner, Herbal, II. 28 a. The bunghes [of the larch] are lesse then any other kynde *conenutberyng tre hath.
1850. Weale, Dict. Terms, *Cone-plate, a strong plate of cast iron fixed vertically to the bed of a lathe, with a conical hole in it, to form a support for the end of a shaft which it is required to bore.
1851. Mayne Reid, Scalp Hunt., i. Here a *cone-shaped peak soars up.
1866. Geo. Eliot, F. Holt, 2. Its … cone-shaped yew-tree arbour.
1657. W. Coles, Adam in Eden, v. Of all the *cone trees this only [larch] is found without leaves in the winter.
