what is cot

The cotangent, often abbreviated as cot, is one of the six trigonometric functions. It is defined as the ratio of the length of the side adjacent to an acute angle in a right-angled triangle to the length of the side opposite the angle. In mathematical terms, for an angle A, cot A = length of side adjacent to angle A/length of side opposite angle A. The cotangent function is related to the cosecant function through the identity cot^2 A + 1 = csc^2 A. The cotangent is also the reciprocal of the tangent function, and its derivative with respect to x is -csc^2 x. The indefinite integral of cot x is ln |sin x| .