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
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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
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are honeycombingprogressive
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is honeycombingprogressive
-
have been honeycombingperfect progressive
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has been honeycombingperfect progressive
Past
-
honeycombedsimple
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had honeycombedperfect
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was honeycombingprogressive
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were honeycombingprogressive
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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:
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
To see how these materials were gathered, researchers added trace amounts of graphite to ordinary honeycomb.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 23, 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
Mineral extraction in this region is not in the hands of multinational conglomerates - instead thousands of individuals toil in open pits that honeycomb the landscape, or underground, in extremely unsafe and unhealthy conditions.
From BBC ● Jan. 31, 2025
Look: I lay there, eyes fixed open on the net above me, wondering what it was, marveling at the beautiful honeycomb pattern of narrow lines.
From "100 Sideways Miles" by Andrew Smith
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
Instead, they make padding out of a network of hexagonal towers, or "plate lattices," that look a bit like honeycombs.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 5, 2024
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
She never kicked up her feet and enjoyed honeycombs on a Saturday afternoon.
From New York Times ● Oct. 22, 2022
In the greengrocery market, the stalls were overhung with date branches, cinnamon stalks, strings of dried orange peels, gunny-bags of pistachios, fresh pears, pomegranates, and boxes of honeycombs.
From "The Many Assassinations of Samir, the Seller of Dreams" by Daniel Nayeri
It is a world that seems by its very nature to be pastoral and calm but which is honeycombed with problems, including climate change, competition from cultured honeybees, shrinking habitat and pesticides.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 23, 2022
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
The leopard-spotted, sturdy crust is honeycombed and foldable.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 18, 2021
At the heart of it all is Pyrgos at Tinos’s northern tip, honeycombed with sculptors’ ateliers, picturesque paths and marble carvings framed by fuchsia bougainvillea.
From New York Times ● Jun. 12, 2019
Already the edges of the ice where the waves struck were honeycombed and streaked with yellow.
From "Black Star, Bright Dawn" by Scott O'Dell
Weird subterranean winds whistle through caves honeycombing the limestone, and whoosh with an eerie trumpeting from gaping blowholes.
From Time Magazine Archive
There has been honeycombing and pinching and that sort of thing.
From Time Magazine Archive
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
They saw shadowy caves along the way, and tunnels honeycombing the cliff every which way.
From "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini
Rapid drying produces less shrinkage than slow drying at high temperatures, but is apt to cause case-hardening and honeycombing, especially in dense woods.
From Seasoning of Wood by J. B. (Joseph Bernard) Wagner
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.
