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in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
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Translingual
Symbol
arc
( international standards ) ISO 639-2 & ISO 639-3 language code for Aramaic .
See also
English
A geometric arc, upper right.
An electric arc between two nails.
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English ark , from Old French arc , from Latin arcus ( “ a bow, arc, arch ” ) , ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂erkʷos ( “ bow , arrow ” ) . Doublet of arch , arco , and arrow .
Pronunciation
Noun
arc (plural arcs )
( astronomy ) That part of a circle which a heavenly body appears to pass through as it moves above and below the horizon.
( geometry ) A continuous part of the circumference of a circle (circular arc ) or of another curve.
A curve , in general.
A band contained within parallel curves, or something of that shape.
( electrics ) A flow of current across an insulating medium; especially a hot , luminous discharge either between two electrodes or as lightning .
( narratology ) Ellipsis of story arc .
2015 February 24, Lilian Min, “How the Internet Invented a New Kind of Storytelling”, in The Atlantic :For while most comics have designated entry points into the story in the form of arcs , Homestuck is one elaborate, self-referencing inside joke collapsed inside its own funhouse mirror reflection.
( by extension, Internet slang ) A period or phase in a person's life.
I'm hitting the gym three times a week or more at the moment. I'm in my gym bro arc .
I miss my drawing arc . I feel like I was much more creative back then.
( mathematics ) A continuous mapping from a real interval (typically ) into a space .
( graph theory ) A directed edge .
( basketball , slang ) The three-point line .
( film ) An arclight .
2012 , Kris Malkiewicz, Film Lighting :For all practical purposes the old carbon arcs , which were the backbone of film lighting, are no longer used.
Synonyms
Derived terms
Descendants
Translations
geometry: part of a curve
Arabic: قَوْس (ar) m ( qaws ) , مُنْحَنَى m ( munḥanā )
Armenian: աղեղ (hy) ( aġeġ )
Azerbaijani: qövs (az)
Catalan: arc (ca) m
Chinese:
Mandarin: 弧 (zh) ( hú )
Czech: oblouk (cs) m
Danish: bue c
Dutch: boog (nl) m
Esperanto: arko
Finnish: kaari (fi)
French: arc de courbe m
Galician: arco (gl) m
German: Bogen (de) m , Arkus m , Kreisbogen (de) m
Hawaiian: kaula
Hungarian: ív (hu) , körív (hu)
Ido: arko (io)
Irish: arc m
Italian: arco (it) m
Japanese: 円弧 (ja) ( えんこ, enko )
Korean: 원호 (ko) ( wonho )
Latin: arcus (la) m
Malay: lengkung (ms) , lengkuk , lengkok
Malayalam: ചാപം (ml) ( cāpaṁ )
Maori: pewa
Navajo: názhah
Norwegian:
Bokmål: bue (no) m , boge m
Nynorsk: boge m
Persian: کمان (fa) ( kamân )
Polish: łuk (pl) m
Portuguese: arco (pt) m
Romanian: arc (ro) n
Russian: дуга́ (ru) f ( dugá ) , а́рка (ru) f ( árka )
Spanish: arco (es) m
Swedish: kurva (sv) c , båge (sv) c
Tagalog: bantok
Turkish: yay (tr) , kavis (tr)
Vietnamese: vòng cung
curve
Armenian: աղեղ (hy) ( aġeġ )
Bulgarian: дъга (bg) f ( dǎga )
Chinese:
Mandarin: 弧形 (zh) ( húxíng )
Czech: oblouk (cs) m
Dutch: boog (nl) m
Esperanto: arko
Finnish: kaari (fi)
French: arc (fr) m
Galician: curva (gl) f
German: Bogen (de) m , Kurve (de) f
Hungarian: ív (hu)
Ido: arko (io)
Italian: arco (it) m
Japanese: 弧 (ja) ( こ, ko )
Latin: arcus (la) m
Maori: pewa , tāwhana
Navajo: ahééʼídzoh
Norwegian:
Bokmål: bue (no) m , boge m , krumming (no) m or f , krumning (no) m or f , kurve (no) m
Nynorsk: boge m , krumming f , kurve f
Persian: خم (fa) ( xam ) , کمان (fa) ( kamân )
Portuguese: curva (pt) f
Quechua: q'iwi
Romanian: arc (ro) n
Russian: дуга́ (ru) f ( dugá )
Slovak: oblúk m
Spanish: curva (es) f
Swedish: kurva (sv) c , båge (sv) c
Tagalog: bantok
Turkish: kavis (tr) , eğri (tr)
Verb
arc (third-person singular simple present arcs , present participle arcing or arcking , simple past and past participle arced or arcked )
( ambitransitive ) To move following a curved path.
2008 , T. R. Elmore, Blood Ties Series, Volume 1, Tainted, Book 1 , page 106 :A warring bloodhunter detected it and skillfully arced his sword through its spinal column before it could return to follow through with its attack.
2011 February 4, Gareth Roberts, “Wales 19-26 England”, in BBC :Gatland's side got back to within striking distance when fly-half Jones's clever pass sent centre Jonathan Davies arcing round Shontayne Hape.
2024 , Patricia Taxxon, “Big Wheel”, in Bicycle :The big wheel in the sky He arcs o'er miles and miles
( transitive ) To shape into an arc; to hold in the form of an arc.
1953 , James Baldwin , Go Tell It on the Mountain , New York, N.Y.: Knopf , →OCLC , part 1 (The Seventh Day):His mother, her eyes raised to heaven, hands arked before her, moving, made real for John that patience, that endurance, that long suffering, which he had read in the Bible and found so hard to image.
( intransitive ) To form an electrical arc.
Derived terms
Further reading
“arc ”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary , Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam , 1913 , →OCLC .
William Dwight Whitney , Benjamin E Smith , editors (1911 ), “arc ”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co. , →OCLC .
“arc ”, in OneLook Dictionary Search .
Anagrams
Catalan
Etymology
Inherited from Latin arcus , from Proto-Indo-European *h₂erkʷo- .
Pronunciation
Noun
arc m (plural arcs )
bow (weapon)
( music ) bow ( used to play string instruments )
( geometry ) arc
( architecture ) arch
Derived terms
See also
Further reading
“arc ”, in Diccionari de la llengua catalana (in Catalan), second edition, Institute of Catalan Studies , April 2007
“arc ”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana , Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana , 2025.
“arc” in Diccionari normatiu valencià , Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua .
“arc” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear , Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.
French
Etymology
Inherited from Old French arc , from Latin arcus ( “ bow, arch ” ) , from Proto-Indo-European *h₂erkʷo- .
Pronunciation
Noun
arc m (plural arcs )
bow ( weapon )
arc ( curve )
( geometry ) arc, circular arc , circle segment
( architecture ) arch
( fiction ) story arc
Derived terms
See also
Further reading
Anagrams
Friulian
Etymology
Inherited from Latin arcus .
Noun
arc m (plural arcs )
bow (weapon)
( architecture ) arch
See also
Hungarian
Etymology
An archaic compound word of orr ( “ nose ” ) and száj ( “ mouth ” ) , via Proto-Finno-Ugric elements. The original form of these two words was or and szá , the compound word orszá . Over time, the final vowel became short (orsza ), the sz changed to c (orca ), today a poetic or archaic version. The next change was the initial o to a (arca ) which felt as a possessive form and later shortened to the current term.
Pronunciation
Noun
arc (plural arcok )
( anatomy ) face
Synonyms: ( informal ) kép , ( colloquial ) pofa
( anatomy ) cheek
( figuratively ) sight , view , aspect , appearance
( slang , often following jó ) chap , guy , dude , bloke , fellow
Declension
Derived terms
References
Further reading
arc in Géza Bárczi , László Országh , et al. , editors, A magyar nyelv értelmező szótára (ÉrtSz.), Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó , 1959–1962. Fifth ed., 1992: →ISBN .
arc in Nóra Ittzés, editor, A magyar nyelv nagyszótára (Nszt.), Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó , 2006–2031 (work in progress; published a–ez as of 2024) .
Irish
Pronunciation
Etymology 1
From Old Irish orc ( “ piglet ” ) .
Noun
arc m (genitive singular airc , nominative plural airc )
piglet
diminutive animal or person
Synonyms
Etymology 2
From Anglo-Norman arc , from Latin arcus ( “ a bow, arc, arch ” ) .
Noun
arc m (genitive singular airc , nominative plural airc )
( mathematics , geometry ) arc
Derived terms
Etymology 3
Noun
arc m (genitive singular airc , nominative plural airc )
alternative form of earc ( “ lizard; reptile ” )
Declension
Mutation
Note: Certain mutated forms of some words can never occur in standard Modern Irish. All possible mutated forms are displayed for convenience.
Further reading
Ó Dónaill, Niall (1977 ) “arc ”, in Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla , Dublin: An Gúm, →ISBN
Gregory Toner, Sharon Arbuthnot, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf, Dagmar Wodtko, editors (2019 ), “1 orc (‘young pig’) ”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language
Occitan
Etymology
Inherited from Latin arcus .
Pronunciation
Noun
arc m (plural arcs )
bow
arch , arc
Derived terms
Old French
Etymology
Inherited from Latin arcus .
Noun
arc oblique singular , m (oblique plural ars , nominative singular ars , nominative plural arc )
bow ( a weapon made of a curved piece of wood or other flexible material whose ends are connected by a string )
( architecture ) arch
Coordinate terms
Descendants
Old High German
Pronunciation
Adjective
arc
alternative form of arg
References
Joseph Wright, An Old High German Primer
Romanian
Etymology
Inherited from Latin arcus , from Proto-Indo-European *h₂erkʷo- .
Noun
arc n (plural arcuri )
bow ( a weapon )
( architecture ) arch
Declension
Noun
arc n (plural arce )
( geometry ) arc
Declension
Derived terms
See also
Scottish Gaelic
Pronunciation
Etymology 1
From Old Irish orc ( “ piglet ” ) .
Noun
arc m ( obsolete )
sow
piglet
Etymology 2
From Old Irish erc ( “ speckled animal ” ) .
Noun
arc m ( obsolete )
lizard
stag , hind
Noun
arc f
bee , wasp
Etymology 3
(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium .)
Noun
arc m ( obsolete )
body
dwarf
bear
collection
hero
Noun
arc f
impost , tax
References
↑ 1.0 1.1 arc in Edward Dwelly (1911 ) “arc”, in Faclair Gàidhlig gu Beurla le Dealbhan , 10th edition, Edinburgh: Birlinn Limited, →ISBN ; accessed on 7 May 2015.
Welsh
Etymology
From English arc .
Noun
arc m (plural arcau )
( sciences , mathematics ) arc
References
R. J. Thomas, G. A. Bevan, P. J. Donovan, A. Hawke et al., editors (1950–present), “arc ”, in Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru Online (in Welsh), University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh & Celtic Studies