MAGNITUDE

(Lat.) Size, extent, quantity. This term was originally employed to designate the space occupied by any figure; or, in other words, it was applied to objects strictly termed geometrical, and of three dimensions,— length, breadth, and thickne : then it was extended to designate the quantity of any one of these, and also of angular space, or the inclination of two lines to one another; or, again, the compound idea of a solid angle formed by any number of planes meeting in a point. The amount of any one of these, taken in reference to some standard of the same kind of quantity as that spoken of, was called its magnitude. The term was gradually enlarged in its signification, so as to apply to every kind of quantity that admits of exhibition or mensuration, or of which greater or le can be predicated; and in this sense it was used by Euclid. MAGNITUDE, [s. 710]