honeycomb
Americannoun
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honeycombs
plural
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a structure of rows of hexagonal wax cells, formed by bees in their hive for the storage of honey, pollen, and their eggs.
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a piece of this containing honey and chewed as a sweet.
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anything whose appearance suggests such a structure, especially in containing many small units or holes.
The building was a honeycomb of offices and showrooms.
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the reticulum of a ruminant.
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Textiles.
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Also called waffle cloth. a fabric with an embossed surface woven in a pattern resembling a honeycomb.
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the characteristic weave of such a fabric.
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adjective
verb (used with object)
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honeycombs,
present (3rd person singular)
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honeycombed,
past participle, past
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honeycombing
present participle
-
to cause to be full of holes; pierce with many holes or cavities.
an old log honeycombed with ant burrows.
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to penetrate in all parts.
a city honeycombed with vice.
noun
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a waxy structure, constructed by bees in a hive, that consists of adjacent hexagonal cells in which honey is stored, eggs are laid, and larvae develop
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something resembling this in structure or appearance
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zoology another name for reticulum
verb
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to pierce or fill with holes, cavities, etc
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to permeate
honeycombed with spies
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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honeycombsimple
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honeycombssimple
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have honeycombedperfect
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has honeycombedperfect
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am honeycombingprogressive
-
are honeycombingprogressive
-
is honeycombingprogressive
-
have been honeycombingperfect progressive
-
has been honeycombingperfect progressive
Past
-
honeycombedsimple
-
had honeycombedperfect
-
was honeycombingprogressive
-
were honeycombingprogressive
-
had been honeycombingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of honeycomb
before 1050; Middle English huny-comb, Old English hunigcamb. See honey, comb
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.
See Examples For:
“Artists come here from all over the world to be part of it, and there’s so much music dripping out of the honeycomb of this town that I’m in it. I’m in it neck-deep.”
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 16, 2026
On the first day, worker bees filtered out 95% of the pesticide and transferred it into the honeycomb.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 22, 2026
That many are offered with highly Instagrammable toppings like fresh honeycomb has only added to their allure at a time when high inflation has led consumers to seek small indulgences.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 19, 2026
When Apollo 11 landed on the moon, in a vehicle optimized for precisely that purpose, the legs, designed with a crushable honeycomb interior, were supposed to contract.
From Slate ● Dec. 9, 2025
One tiny honeycomb cell is wedged inside, leaving no room to even stand.
From "The Last Cuentista" by Donna Barba Higuera
The “last grizzly killed” has several claimants: In Orange County, it was in February 1908, when a huge steel trap was laid for a bear that had been stealing honeycombs from hives.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 13, 2026
Those kinks help to guide the honeycombs as they crunch down during an impact, allowing for a much smoother collapse.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 5, 2024
The video shows the plane gliding gently over the honeycombs of buildings dotting brown-green fields, before the man filming it turns the camera around and smiles.
From BBC ● Jan. 16, 2023
It holds up well to frequent use, but the concern is whether cleats are getting caught in the honeycombs.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 17, 2022
The inside of the honey house was one big room filled with strange honey-making machines—big tanks, gas burners, troughs, levers, white boxes, and racks piled with waxy honeycombs.
From "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd
The valley above Hood River is honeycombed with farms that have also become destinations where one can handpick fruit, snack outside on picnic tables and bring the dog.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 7, 2023
Instead, he said, the card was probably issued because Putin and his colleagues were granted routine access to Stasi facilities that honeycombed Dresden.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 15, 2023
The resulting porous crystal structure is so fully honeycombed with pockets that a chunk the size of a sugar cube can contain several football fields’ worth of internal surface area.
From Scientific American ● Nov. 17, 2021
For almost a thousand years, artists added new caves until the cliff face was honeycombed with painted corridors and recesses.
From New York Times ● May 11, 2020
Behind this common burial ground the rough face of the cliff was honeycombed with the better tombs of artisans and scribes and merchants, carved into the rock itself.
From "The Golden Goblet" by Eloise Jarvis McGraw
There has been honeycombing and pinching and that sort of thing.
From Time Magazine Archive
Weird subterranean winds whistle through caves honeycombing the limestone, and whoosh with an eerie trumpeting from gaping blowholes.
From Time Magazine Archive
They saw shadowy caves along the way, and tunnels honeycombing the cliff every which way.
From "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini
The idea that the maze was regenerating itself, honeycombing its way under the earth again and providing a spacious new home for monsters...that didn’t make him happy.
From "The House of Hades" by Rick Riordan
General Hunt never could locate the place, and shot at short range above five hundred shells doing no damage, but honeycombing the surrounding ground.
From History of Kershaw's Brigade by D. Augustus Dickert
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
