tetrahedron
Americannoun
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tetrahedrons,
plural
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tetrahedra
plural
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Geometry. a solid contained by four plane faces; a triangular pyramid.
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any of various objects resembling a tetrahedron in the distribution of its faces or apexes.
noun
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a solid figure having four plane faces. A regular tetrahedron has faces that are equilateral triangles See also polyhedron
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any object shaped like a tetrahedron
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tetrahedrons
plural
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of tetrahedron
1560–70; tetra- + -hedron, modeled on Late Greek tetráedron, noun use of neuter of tetráedros four-sided
Vocabulary lists containing tetrahedron
UCPS 6th Grade Roots List #5
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Organic Chemistry
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Example Sentences
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For example, a tetrahedron, a solid three-dimensional pyramid with four triangular faces, would fill in a group of four neurons firing together.
From Scientific American ● Sep. 26, 2022
Many elements overlapped, forming a multidimensional sculpture: a triangle might jut out of a tetrahedron and meet another triangle at a point.
From Scientific American ● Sep. 26, 2022
As a solid, as a liquid, as a gas, and in solution, white phosphorus exists as P4 molecules with four phosphorus atoms at the corners of a regular tetrahedron, as illustrated in Figure 18.24.
From Textbooks ● Feb. 14, 2019
Since the silicon ion has a charge of +4 and each of the four oxygen ions has a charge of –2, the silica tetrahedron has a net charge of –4.
From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2015
The hull sat on Panel A, one of four sides of the tetrahedron which brought Pathfinder to Mars.
From "The Martian" by Andy Weir
One part copper, two parts vanadium and four parts sulfur, the alloy features a 3D pyrochlore lattice consisting of corner-sharing tetrahedra.
From Science Daily ● Jan. 29, 2024
The SiO4 tetrahedra in glassy silica have a random arrangement characteristic of supercooled liquids, and the glass has some very useful properties.
From Textbooks ● Feb. 14, 2019
There is even more sharing of oxygens between adjacent tetrahedra and hence fewer charge-balancing cations are needed for sheet silicate minerals.
From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2015
In pyroxene, silica tetrahedra are linked together in a single chain, where one oxygen ion from each tetrahedron is shared with the adjacent tetrahedron, hence there are fewer oxygens in the structure.
From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2015
The two groups are not closely allied in composition, though both titanium and tin have in common the five intersecting tetrahedra at their respective centres.
From Occult Chemistry Clairvoyant Observations on the Chemical Elements by A. P. Sinnett
To precisely position the sensing components, the team built DNA tetrahedrons, which are small pyramid shaped nanostructures formed entirely from DNA.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 16, 2026
Off the shores of Long Beach, where sails could catch wind, a white fleet clustered around orange buoys shaped like tetrahedrons.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 16, 2022
But Georgia-born Dylan Neuwirth’s sculptures have the weight of esoteric significance, like symbols you’d find in a medieval alchemy book: lines, circles, tetrahedrons in eerie blues and reds.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 26, 2018
“There is no me. . . . There are clusters of tetrahedrons moving around together. . . . We don’t matter.”
From Washington Post ● Nov. 29, 2017
The crystals are minute tetrahedrons, with each pointed corner an electrical contact.
From Check and Checkmate by Walter M. Miller
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.
