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Fourier

American  
[foor-ee-ey, -ee-er, foo-ryey] / ˈfʊər iˌeɪ, -i ər, fuˈrjeɪ /

noun

  1. François Marie Charles 1772–1837, French socialist, writer, and reformer.

  2. Jean Baptiste Joseph 1768–1830, French mathematician and physicist.

  3. a crater in the third quadrant of the face of the moon: about 36 miles (58 km) in diameter.


Fourier British  
/ furje, ˈfʊərɪˌeɪ /

noun

  1. ( François Marie ) Charles (ʃarl). 1772–1837, French social reformer: propounded a system of cooperatives known as Fourierism, esp in his work Le Nouveau monde industriel (1829–30)

  2. Jean Baptiste Joseph (ʒɑ̃ batist ʒozɛf). 1768–1830, French mathematician, Egyptologist, and administrator, noted particularly for his research on the theory of heat and the method of analysis named after him

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Fourier Scientific  
/ frē-ā′,fo̅o̅-ryā /
  1. French mathematician and physicist who introduced the expansion of periodic functions in the trigonometric series that is now named for him. He also studied the conduction of heat in solid bodies.


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:

Robotics companies tout their healthcare potential, with firms like Fourier already supplying rural rehab centres with devices like mechanical arms for physiotherapy.

From Barron's Mar. 3, 2026

“Some of these companies financed at 2%-3% interest rates,” borrowing as much as seven times their cash flows, says Orlando Gemes, chief investment officer at Fourier Asset Management, a credit hedge fund in London.

From The Wall Street Journal Nov. 22, 2025

This method can extract different fluorophore signals, similar to how the human ear uses a mathematical model known as a Fourier transform to extract different pitches from a piece of music.

From Science Daily Nov. 28, 2023

In 1824 -- so three decades before either of their experiments -- the mathematician Joseph Fourier was thinking about the surface of the Earth, why it isn’t much colder.

From Scientific American Nov. 9, 2023

While inspecting the schools in his province, Fourier discovered an eleven-year-old boy whose remarkable intellect and flair for oriental languages had already earned him the admiring attention of scholars.

From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan

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