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Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source - Share This

quin·cunx

Audio Help [kwing-kuhngks, kwin-] Pronunciation Key

–noun

1.	an arrangement of five objects, as trees, in a square or rectangle, one at each corner and one in the middle.

2.	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.

[Origin: 1640–50; < L: five twelfths (quinc-, var. of quīnque- quinque- + uncia twelfth; see ounce¹); orig. a Roman coin worth five twelfths of an as and marked with a quincunx of spots

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Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This

quin·cunx Audio Help (kwĭn'kŭngks') Pronunciation Key
n. An arrangement of five objects with one at each corner of a rectangle or square and one at the center.

[Latin quīncūnx, quīncūnc-, five twelfths : quīnque, five; see penk^we in Indo-European roots + ūncia, twelfth part of a unit; see ounce¹.]

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The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
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Online Etymology Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
quincunx

1647, originally astrological, of planetary alignments, from L., lit. "five ounces," from quinque "five" + uncia "ounce, a twelfth part," related to unus "one." Applied, especially in garden design, to arrangements like the five pips on a playing card (1664).

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This

Quincunx

Quin*cun"cial\, [L. quincuncialis, from quincunx. See Quincunx.]

1. Having the form of a quincunx.

2. (Bot.) Having the leaves of a pentamerous calyx or corolla so imbricated that two are exterior, two are interior, and the other has one edge exterior and one interior; as, quincuncial [ae]stivation.

Quincuncial phyllotaxy (Bot.), an arrangement of five leaves in a spiral, each leaf two fifths of a circle from the next.

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