tetrahedron
Americannoun
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tetrahedrons,
plural
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tetrahedra
plural
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Geometry. a solid contained by four plane faces; a triangular pyramid.
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any of various objects resembling a tetrahedron in the distribution of its faces or apexes.
noun
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a solid figure having four plane faces. A regular tetrahedron has faces that are equilateral triangles See also polyhedron
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any object shaped like a tetrahedron
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tetrahedrons
plural
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of tetrahedron
1560–70; tetra- + -hedron, modeled on Late Greek tetráedron, noun use of neuter of tetráedros four-sided
Vocabulary lists containing tetrahedron
UCPS 6th Grade Roots List #5
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Organic Chemistry
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Example Sentences
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For example, a tetrahedron, a solid three-dimensional pyramid with four triangular faces, would fill in a group of four neurons firing together.
From Scientific American ● Sep. 26, 2022
Many elements overlapped, forming a multidimensional sculpture: a triangle might jut out of a tetrahedron and meet another triangle at a point.
From Scientific American ● Sep. 26, 2022
Each atom within the crystal has covalent bonds to four neighboring atoms at the corners of a regular tetrahedron.
From Textbooks ● Feb. 14, 2019
The bonds in a silica tetrahedron have some of the properties of covalent bonds and some of the properties of ionic bonds.
From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2015
The hull sat on Panel A, one of four sides of the tetrahedron which brought Pathfinder to Mars.
From "The Martian" by Andy Weir
One part copper, two parts vanadium and four parts sulfur, the alloy features a 3D pyrochlore lattice consisting of corner-sharing tetrahedra.
From Science Daily ● Jan. 29, 2024
In silicon dioxide, each silicon atom links to four oxygen atoms by single bonds directed toward the corners of a regular tetrahedron, and SiO4 tetrahedra share oxygen atoms.
From Textbooks ● Feb. 14, 2019
In nearly all silicates, sp3-hybridized silicon atoms occur at the centers of tetrahedra with oxygen at the corners.
From Textbooks ● Feb. 14, 2019
A silicate mineral is one in which silicon and oxygen are present as silica tetrahedra.
From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2015
In boracite there are four uniterminal triad axes, and the faces of the two tetrahedra perpendicular to them will bear opposite charges.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 7 "Crocoite" to "Cuba" by Various
To precisely position the sensing components, the team built DNA tetrahedrons, which are small pyramid shaped nanostructures formed entirely from DNA.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 16, 2026
Off the shores of Long Beach, where sails could catch wind, a white fleet clustered around orange buoys shaped like tetrahedrons.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 16, 2022
But Georgia-born Dylan Neuwirth’s sculptures have the weight of esoteric significance, like symbols you’d find in a medieval alchemy book: lines, circles, tetrahedrons in eerie blues and reds.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 26, 2018
Modern tents are lighter and come in interesting shapes: tetrahedrons and domes.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 11, 2015
This involves a partial revolution of the two tetrahedrons in opposite directions around their common axis.
From Scientific American Supplement, No. 633, February 18, 1888 by Various
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.
