prism
Optics. a transparent solid body, often having triangular bases, used for dispersing light into a spectrum or for reflecting rays of light.
Geometry. a solid having bases or ends that are parallel, congruent polygons and sides that are parallelograms.
Crystallography. a form having faces parallel to the vertical axis and intersecting the horizontal axes.
Origin of prism
1Words Nearby prism
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use prism in a sentence
That one went quickly out to the left, where Smith caught it and made a breathtaking passage around three Ohio State defenders in the last little prism of space available on the left side of the field, stopping only 22 yards later.
The Alabama football dynasty collects another title with a 52-24 rout of Ohio State | Chuck Culpepper, Des Bieler | January 12, 2021 | Washington PostThe scientists could watch through a tiny prism as neurons fired and lit up.
A taste map in the brain is a scattering of tiny flavor islands | Bethany Brookshire | January 5, 2021 | Science News For StudentsThe favored approach to understanding colonial rule, particularly in Africa, is through the prism of political governance—how the colonial authority was imposed through local or native authorities.
How the colonial enterprise hard-wired violence into Nigeria’s governance | Benjamin Maiangwa | October 21, 2020 | QuartzTry placing some plastic wrap or a prism over the lens to test out different effects in refracting the light.
The viewfinder has moved over to the top left corner of the body—the A7 line puts it at the top where the prism would be on a DSLR.
Sony built a tiny mirrorless camera with a full-frame sensor inside | Stan Horaczek | September 16, 2020 | Popular-Science
I recognize my inability to truly understand these events in the same context or view these events through exactly the same prism.
You had the prism program, and you also have National Security letters.
He pops from the screen as a charismatic, occasionally messianic “human prism,” as Moss calls him.
Snowden himself exposed a program known as prism that provided these so-called back doors to the NSA in the United States.
Sorry, Snowden: Putin Lied to You About His Surveillance State—And Made You a Pawn of It | Eli Lake | April 18, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTMistakes happen, nuance is often lost, and everything is seen through a prism of who is winning and who is losing.
At eighteen does not love hold a prism between the world and the eyes of a young girl?
At the Sign of the Cat and Racket | Honore de BalzacHis name and his bright past, seen through the prism of whispered gossip, had gained him the nickname of The Admiral.
Tales and Fantasies | Robert Louis StevensonIt was an irregular trapezium, a mass struck off from the colossal granitic prism of the Great Douvre.
Toilers of the Sea | Victor HugoA theme taken from a medival author; an antique figure, that of Virgil, but seen through the prism of modern poetry.
The History of Modern Painting, Volume 1 (of 4) | Richard MutherAnalysis by the prism alone has quite doubled the knowledge that was previously available.
The Hills and the Vale | Richard Jefferies
British Dictionary definitions for prism
/ (ˈprɪzəm) /
a transparent polygonal solid, often having triangular ends and rectangular sides, for dispersing light into a spectrum or for reflecting and deviating light. They are used in spectroscopes, binoculars, periscopes, etc
a form of crystal with faces parallel to the vertical axis
maths a polyhedron having parallel, polygonal, and congruent bases and sides that are parallelograms
Origin of prism
1Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Scientific definitions for prism
[ prĭz′əm ]
A geometric solid whose bases are congruent polygons lying in parallel planes and whose sides are parallelograms.
A solid of this type, often made of glass with triangular ends, used to disperse light and break it up into a spectrum.
A crystal form having 3, 4, 6, 8, or 12 faces parallel to the vertical axis and intersecting the horizontal axis.
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Cultural definitions for prism
[ (priz-uhm) ]
A solid figure in geometry with bases or ends of the same size and shape and sides that have parallel edges. Also, an object that has this shape.
Notes for prism
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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