disphenoid
disphenoid adjective: of or pertaining to a wedge-shaped crystal form of the tetragonal or orthorhombic system.
Adjective
disphenoid (not comparable)
- Of or pertaining to a wedge-shaped crystal form of the tetragonal or orthorhombic system.
- Of or pertaining to a crystal form bounded by eight scalene triangles arranged in pairs, constituting a tetragonal scalenohedron.
Noun
disphenoid (plural disphenoids)
- A non-regular tetrahedron whose four faces are congruent acute-angled triangles.
- The mineral chalcopyrite commonly crystallizes in disphenoids that are very difficult to distinguish from tetrahedrons.1949, Edward Salisbury Dana, Minerals and How to Study Them, page 32
- To make a model of a disphenoid, cut out an acute angled triangle and fold it along the joins of the mid-points of the sides. The disphenoid is said to be rhombic or tetragonal according as the triangle is isosceles or scalene.1973, H. S. M. Coxeter, 3rd Edition, unnumbered page
- Synonyms:
- bisphenoid, equifacial tetrahedron, isosceles tetrahedron
Examples of disphenoid in a sentence
- If you rotate the [tetragonal] disphenoid 90° around its 2-fold axis and then perform the operation of inversion through the center-point of the object, it will occupy its original position again.1977, Elizabeth A. Wood, Crystals and Light: An Introduction to Optical Crystallography, Revised edition, page 8:
- In addition it should be remarked that there are two types of disphenoids, with different symmetries: the tetragonal disphenoid (having isosceles facets) and the rhombic one.1993, Horst Martini, “A Hierarchical Classification of Euclidean Polytopes with Regularity Properties”, in Tibor Bisztriczky, Peter...
Synonyms of disphenoid
- bisphenoid
- equifacial tetrahedron
- isosceles tetrahedron
Forms of disphenoid
| plural | disphenoids |
|---|
Origin of disphenoid
From di- (“twice, double”) + sphenoid (“wedge-shaped crystal or bone of the skull”).
Words formed from disphenoid
- rhombic disphenoid
- snub disphenoid
- tetragonal disphenoid
Questions about disphenoid
- What does disphenoid mean?
- Disphenoid means of or pertaining to a wedge-shaped crystal form of the tetragonal or orthorhombic system.
- How do you use disphenoid in a sentence?
- If you rotate the [tetragonal] disphenoid 90° around its 2-fold axis and then perform the operation of inversion through the center-point of the object, it will occupy its original position again.
- What part of speech is disphenoid?
- Disphenoid can be an adjective or a noun.
Words near disphenoid in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: disphenoid (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-disphenoid.wav.
Cite this entry: “disphenoid.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/disphenoid. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.