disc

Pluraldiscs

Formsdiscs, discing, disced

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A thin, flat, circular plate, or any object of a similar shape.

   The token was a small disc of brass stamped with the company's name.

   The museum displayed bronze discs engraved with star maps.

   Similarcircle, plate

   Note

   Behind the word is a long family tree: it came through French disque and Latin discus from Greek dískos, a quoit or platter, the same source that gave English dish and desk. A coin is the everyday model of the shape, and the of-phrase is how English says what a disc is made of: a disc of metal, a disc of brass.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   Any of the cushioning pads of cartilage that sit between neighboring vertebrae of the spine.

   The MRI showed a herniated disc between two vertebrae in her lower back.

   Years of heavy lifting had left the discs in his neck worn and thin.

   Note

   Each one is a tough, fibrous ring around a softer, gel-like core, a build that lets the spine bend and soaks up shock. When the core pushes through a weak spot in the ring, doctors speak of a herniated disc; everyday speech calls it a slipped disc, though nothing actually slips out of place.

3. 3
   noun

   Alternative form of disk.

   Any point inside the unit disc lies less than one unit from the origin.

   The sun sank toward the horizon, a glowing orange disc above the sea.

   Note

   Two spellings of one word: disc can stand wherever disk does, so besides the plate, the spine's cushion and the record it also covers the geometer's region bounded by a circle and the short name for a floppy disk. Both trace back to the Greek word behind the flat round plate, so neither spelling is an error.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   A vinyl record, of the kind played on a phonograph or gramophone.

   The DJ slid the disc from its sleeve and lowered the needle onto the first track.

   Collectors pay high prices for rare jazz discs pressed in the 1950s.

   Similarrecord

5. 5
   nouncountable

   Anything that looks like a flat, round plate, such as the visible face of the sun or a planet.

   During the transit, a small black dot crept slowly across the sun's disc.

   From the hilltop, the frozen pond was a silver disc among the dark trees.

   Similarface, circle

   Note

   A sphere seen from far away looks flat, and that is how the word comes to name the face of the sun or a planet: Venus's disc, the Martian disc. H. G. Wells uses it in The War of the Worlds (1898) for a faint dark mark caught on a photograph of the Martian disc, the planet as an observer actually sees it.

6. 6
   nounabbreviationellipsis

   Short for flying disc, a frisbee.

   The handler flicked the disc low across the field, and she laid out to catch it in the end zone.

   On the first hole, his drive sent the disc deep into the trees.

   Note

   In disc sports this is the neutral, generic word, because Frisbee is a trademark. It is short for flying disc, a phrase that names both the object, which is counted (one disc, a bag of discs), and the sport itself, which is uncountable and takes no article.

7. 7
   nouncountable

   The flat surface of a plant organ such as a leaf, or any flat, round growth on a plant.

   The broad disc of a nasturtium leaf sheds raindrops easily.

   Flat, reddish discs dotted the underside of the oak leaves where gall wasps had laid their eggs.

   Note

   Botanists use the word for a shape rather than for one fixed part, so it can name a flattened surface or growth almost anywhere on a plant. A familiar case is the flat center of a daisy or sunflower, packed with tiny florets and ringed by petal-like rays.

8. 8
   verbtransitive

   To harrow ground with a disc harrow, breaking up and leveling the soil.

   Many farmers disc the stubble under in the fall to speed up its breakdown.

   Discing the alfalfa lightly in early spring helps keep the weeds down.

   Similarharrow

   Note

   The machine behind the verb is a harrow carrying rows of concave steel discs set at an angle, so each one slices and turns the soil as it rolls. The forms are discs, disced and discing, and the word is well settled in farm writing: The Agricultural Journal and Mining Record held in 1901 that discing was as much value to lucerne as cultivation is to corn.

9. 9
   verbintransitive

   Of a propeller, to move toward or operate at zero blade pitch, turning the blades flat to the oncoming air so the propeller produces maximum drag.

   Pilots are trained to feather a propeller quickly before it can disc on a dead engine.

   As the aircraft touched down, both propellers disced, and the extra drag helped slow it on the runway.

   Oppositefeather

   Note

   Feathering's opposite: a feathered propeller turns its blades edge-on to the air to cut drag after an engine fails, while a discing propeller turns them flat, so the spinning circle acts almost like a solid plate. On the runway that drag can help slow the aircraft, but in flight the uneven drag of one discing propeller can cost the pilot control of the airplane.

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