Abscissa and ordinate

In common usage, the abscissa refers to the horizontal ("x") axis and the ordinate refers to the vertical ("y") axis of a standard two-dimensional graph.
In mathematics, the abscissa (; plural "abscissae" or "abscissæ" or "abscissas") and the ordinate are respectively the first and second coordinate of a point in a coordinate system:
Usually these are the horizontal and vertical coordinates of a point in a two-dimensional rectangular Cartesian coordinate system. An ordered pair consists of two terms—the abscissa (horizontal, usually "x") and the ordinate (vertical, usually "y")—which define the location of a point in two-dimensional rectangular space:
The abscissa of a point is the signed measure of its projection on the primary axis, whose absolute value is the distance between the projection and the origin of the axis, and whose sign is given by the location on the projection relative to the origin (before: negative; after: positive).
The ordinate of a point is the signed measure of its projection on the secondary axis, whose absolute value is the distance between the projection and the origin of the axis, and whose sign is given by the location on the projection relative to the origin (before: negative; after: positive).
Etymology.
Though the word "abscissa" (Latin; "linea abscissa", "a line cut off") has been used at least since "De Practica Geometrie" published in 1220 by Fibonacci (Leonardo of Pisa), its use in its modern sense may be due to Venetian mathematician Stefano degli Angeli in his work "Miscellaneum Hyperbolicum, et Parabolicum" of 1659.
In his 1892 work " ("Lectures on history of mathematics""), volume 2, German historian of mathematics Moritz Cantor writes:
At the same time it was presumably by [Stefano degli Angeli] that a word was introduced into the mathematical vocabulary for which especially in analytic geometry the future proved to have much in store. […] We know of no earlier use of the word "abscissa" in Latin original texts. Maybe the word appears in translations of the Apollonian conics, where [in] Book I, Chapter 20 there is mention of "ἀποτεμνομέναις," for which there would hardly be a more appropriate Latin word than .
The use of the word “ordinate” is related to the Latin phrase “linea ordinata applicata”, or “line applied parallel”.
In parametric equations.
In a somewhat obsolete variant usage, the abscissa of a point may also refer to any number that describes the point's location along some path, e.g. the parameter of a parametric equation. Used in this way, the abscissa can be thought of as a coordinate-geometry analog to the independent variable in a mathematical model or experiment (with any ordinates filling a role analogous to dependent variables).