TITLE: What does the secant value represent?
QUESTION [6 upvotes]: What does the secant value represent?
I know that $$\sec = 1/\cos(\theta)$$ but really I do not know what this value represents, so I need your help. A clear example with images would be appreciated.

REPLY [3 votes]: The numeric values of the different trig functions are the lengths of the line segments in the diagram below, if the circle has radius $1$.  This helped me a lot when trying to visualize what the numeric value of each trig function meant.

(Picture taken from Wikipedia.)
For Example, $\sec(\theta) = 2$ means that:

If one draws a tangent line from the point on the unit circle at $\theta$, the distance from the center of the unit circle to the intersection of the tangent line and the horizontal is $2$ units.