Geom. [f. L. cōn-us CONE + cuneus wedge.] A surface generated by a straight line that constantly intersects a fixed straight line at right angles, and also constantly passes through the circumference of a fixed circle; i.e., a figure with a circular base like a cone, but having instead of an apex a ridge or edge like a wedge.
First treated of by Prof. J. Wallis of Oxford in 1662. In his definition the name is applied to one quarter of the whole solid, formed by two sections, parallel and at right angles, respectively, to the edge, and having thus one fourth of the curved surface, and three plane surfaces, one a quadrant of the circular base.
1662. Wallis, Lett. to Sir R. Murray, April, 7. Solidum sic terminatum vocamus Conocuneum. 1684—transl., I thought fit to give it the name of Cono-Cuneus, as having the base of a Cone, and the vertex of a Cuneus.
1862. Salmon, Geom. of 3 Dim., § 384. Ex. 1 The equation of the right conoid passing through the axis of z and through a plane curve … Wallis’s cono-cuneus is when the fixed curve is a circle.
1869. B. Price, Infin. Calc., I. 538. Ex. 2.
