PUNCHINS

, or Punchions, in Building, short pieces of timber placed to support some considerable weight.

PUNCTATED Hyperbola, in the higher geometry, an hyperbola whose conjugate oval is infinitely small, that is, a point.

PUNCTUM ex Comparatione, is either focus, in the ellipse or hyperbola; so called by Apollonius, because the rectangle under two abscisses made at the focus, is equal to one fourth part of what he calls the figure, which is the square of the conjugate axis, or the rectangle under the transverse and the parameter.