AbstractDefine n × n tridiagonal matrices T and S as follows: All entries of the main diagonal of T are zero and those of the first super- and subdiagonal are one. The entries of the main diagonal of S are two except the (n, n) entry one, and those of the first super- and subdiagonal are minus one. Then, denoting by λ(·) the largest eigenvalue,Using certain lower bounds for the largest eigenvalue, we provide lower bounds for these expressions and, further, lower bounds for sin x and cos x on certain intervals. Also upper bounds can be obtained in this way.