quincunx
Americannoun
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an arrangement of five objects, as trees, in a square or rectangle, one at each corner and one in the middle.
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Botany. an overlapping arrangement of five petals or leaves, in which two are interior, two are exterior, and one is partly interior and partly exterior.
noun
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a group of five objects arranged in the shape of a rectangle with one at each of the four corners and the fifth in the centre
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botany a quincuncial arrangement of sepals or petals in the bud
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astrology an aspect of 150° between two planets
Etymology
Origin of quincunx
1640–50; < Latin: five twelfths ( quinc-, variant of quīnque- quinque- + uncia twelfth; see ounce 1); originally a Roman coin worth five twelfths of an as and marked with a quincunx of spots
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Not surprisingly, a like symmetry turns up in The Quincunx itself.
From Time Magazine Archive
For all its vibrancy, The Quincunx occasionally seems to be too much of a good thing.
From Time Magazine Archive
It was Letitia's inheritance that allowed her husband to refurbish his ancestral home, Quincunx House in Essex, to its former splendor.
From Time Magazine Archive
Fortunately, such echoes do not make The Quincunx a mausoleum of older books.
From Time Magazine Archive
To this ambition, perhaps, we owe the Frogs of Homer; the Gnat and the Bees of Virgil; the Butterfly of Spenser; the Shadow of Wowerus; and the Quincunx of Browne.
From Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 by Disraeli, Isaac
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
