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Platonic solid

noun

Geometry.
  1. one of the five regular polyhedrons: tetrahedron, octahedron, hexahedron, icosahedron, or dodecahedron.


Platonic solid

noun

  1. any of the five possible regular polyhedra: cube, tetrahedron, octahedron, icosahedron, and dodecahedron Also called (esp formerly)Platonic body
“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
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Word History and Origins

Origin of Platonic solid1

First recorded in 1950–55
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Word History and Origins

Origin of Platonic solid1

C17: named after Plato 1, who was the first to list them
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Example Sentences

Figure 1 | The assembly of proteins into Platonic and Archimedean geometries. a, Platonic solids are a family of symmetrical 3D shapes that includes the cube.

From Nature

Dr. Curry’s favorite theorem is the classification of the Platonic solids.

Like Platonic solids, rigid objects are typically rare, and sometimes theoretical objects can be so rigid they don’t exist — mathematical unicorns.

Johannes Kepler famously fixated on a model of the solar system based on the regularity of the Platonic solids.

He moves on to survey the forgotten 3-D Platonic solids, namely, Kepler–Poinsot polyhedrons, such as the small stellated dodecahedron, known to have been depicted by a Venetian mosaic artist as early as 1430.

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Platonic lovePlatonic year