a. [a. Fr. équidistant, ad. late L. æquidistant-em, f. æqui- (see EQUI-) + distant-em standing apart, DISTANT.]

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  1.  Separated by an equal distance or equal distances. Also fig.

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1593.  T. Fale, Dialling, 14. Draw the line H. I. equidistant from A. B. or K. L.

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1613.  Donne, Elegie Pr. Henry, Poems (1650), 240.

        Quotidian things, and equidistant hence,
Shut in, for man, in one circumference.

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1646.  Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., VI. v. 293. They would be equidistant from that Tropick.

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1796.  Morse, Amer. Geog., I. 590. The situation of this metropolis is upon the great post road, equi-distant from the northern and southern extremities of the Union.

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1817.  Coleridge, Biog. Lit., I. x. 178. My opinions … were almost equi-distant from all the three prominent parties, the Pittites, the Foxites, and the Democrats.

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1869.  Ouseley, Counterp., xii. 54. The [4] parts should be kept … equidistant.

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  2.  Always preserving the same distance (from another line, etc.); parallel.

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1570.  Billingsley, Euclid, I. def. 35. Parallel or equidistant right lines.

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1635.  N. Carpenter, Geog. Del., I. ix. 208. It is contained betwixt two equidistant circles.

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1657.  S. Purchas, Pol. Flying-Ins., 195. The back … hath several semicircular equidistant strakes down to the belly.

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1805.  Repton, Landsc. Gardening, 88. The banks of a natural river are never equidistant.

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1848.  S. C. Bartlett, Egypt to Pal., xi. (1879), 240. I … found the two lines everywhere equidistant.

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  3.  Equidistant projection: a mode of mapping a sphere, where the ‘center of projection’ is one reached by producing the diameter by a line equal to half the chord of a quadrant of the sphere.

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1866.  Proctor, Handbk. Stars, 20. The equidistant projection.

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1867.  Denison, Astron. without Math., 13.

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  Hence Equidistantly adv., so as to be equidistant, at an equal distance. † Equidistantness, = EQUIDISTANCE.

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1571.  Digges, Pantom., I. Def. B iiij a. Two right lines … equedistantly placed.

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1646.  Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., IV. v. 188. The Liver … doth equidistantly communicate its activity unto either arme.

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1859.  Todd, Cycl. Anat., V. 598/2. These parts … when spread out equidistantly from each other.

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1873.  Fergusson, in Tristram, Land of Moab, 377. The heads of the arches spaced equidistantly with those on the flanks.

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1736.  Bailey, Equidistantness, a being equidistant.

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