asymptote, v.

[Ben Zimmer]

[Re-sending as plain-text.]

http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/13/the-power-of-voice-a-conversation-with-the-head-of-googles-speech-technology/
"By the late 70s and early 80s, when Cohen started doing research at
SRI, the engineers were in the lead. But there was a problem: the
improvements seen in their models were starting to asymptote."

I can't find any dictionary coverage for "asymptote" as a verb (= 'to
approach an asymptote'). Examples on Google Books go back at least to
1896:

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http://books.google.com/books?id=BR02AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA324
1896 _Journal of the Royal Statistical Society_ June 59/II:324 The
curve is symmetrical and tails off more or less rapidly in both
directions, according to the value of σ, asymptoting to the base.
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http://books.google.com/books?id=DtfPAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA589
1904 _Philosophical Magazine_ Nov. 47:589 The fact that the curves
appear to asymptote to this line shows that the overtones die away
quicker than the fundamental.
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--bgz

--
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

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