Meanings
- humorousmnemonicmathematicsA mnemonic phrase used to help people remember the different trigonometric functions: sine is opposite over hypotenuse; cosine is adjacent over hypotenuse; and tangent is opposite over adjacent.
"It's easier with a mnemonic," Molly says. "Like… Some Old Hippie Caught Another Hippie Tripping On Acid—"
2015 December 1, Eric Lindstrom, chapter 23, in Not If I See You First, Little, Brown Books For Young Readers, →ISBN, archived from the original on 19 Mar 20242 more examples
Another high school teacher told me that he uses a similar acrostic, but his is as follows: Some Old Hippie Caught Another Hippie Tripping On Acid.
2003 March 5, “Mnemonic Devices” (chapter 9), in Marcia L. Tate, editor, Worksheets Don't Grow Dendrites, SAGE Publications, →ISBN, archived from the original on 20 Mar 2024, page 93[…] I thought my mastery of sines, cosines, and tangents—Some Old Hippie Caught Another Hippie Tripping On Acid—might elevate me to another level of intellectual superiority in my high school; […]
2022 September, Jill Christman, “The Googly Eye”, in If This Were Fiction, archived from the original on 20 Mar 2024, page 92Synonyms: SOHCAHTOA
Synonyms & antonyms
phraseA mnemonic phrase used to help people remember the different trigonometric functions: sine is opposite over hypotenuse; cosine is adjacent over hypotenuse; and tangent is opposite over adjacent.
Origin
From each word's initial letter forming SOHCAHTOA.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
Some Old Hippie Caught Another Hippie Tripping On Acid. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Some%20Old%20Hippie%20Caught%20Another%20Hippie%20Tripping%20On%20Acid
“Some Old Hippie Caught Another Hippie Tripping On Acid.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Some%20Old%20Hippie%20Caught%20Another%20Hippie%20Tripping%20On%20Acid. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Some Old Hippie Caught Another Hippie Tripping On Acid,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Some%20Old%20Hippie%20Caught%20Another%20Hippie%20Tripping%20On%20Acid.
Source: Some Old Hippie Caught Another Hippie Tripping On Acid on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.