Word.ws English Dictionary

monotile

monotile noun: a prototile tiling monohedrally; any shape able to completely tile some space on its own (allowing for translation, rotation, and reflection).

monotile: a prototile tiling monohedrally; any shape able to completely tile some space on its own (allowing...
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Noun

monotile (plural monotiles)

  1. A prototile tiling monohedrally; any shape able to completely tile some space on its own (allowing for translation, rotation, and reflection).
    • In the following section we will describe families of tilings by a curious three-dimensional aperiodic monotile whose matching rule — for some values of its parameter — is weak but not strong.1995, Marjorie Senechal, Quasicrystals and Geometry, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 208
    • And I am sorry I never delivered on the four-dimensional Poultry design. It turns out John Horton Conway found four-dimensional and five-dimensional aperiodic monotiles sixty years ago, but it's not too well documented.1997, Rudy Rucker, Freeware (Ware Tetralogy; 3), New York, N.Y.: Avon Books, →ISBN, page 69

Examples of monotile in a sentence

  • This naturally led to serious rumination about the possible existence of a single tile, or monotile, that forces non-periodic global structure.2007 March, Joshua E. S. Socolar, “More ways to tile with only one shape polygon”, in The Mathematical Intelligencer, volume 29, number 2...
  • An aperiodic monotile never repeats a formation, no matter how long the pattern.2023 April 4, Matthew Cantor, “'The miracle that disrupts order': mathematicians invent new 'einstein' shape”, in The Guardian, London...

Forms of monotile

pluralmonotiles

Origin of monotile

From mono- (“one”) + tile.

Questions about monotile

What does monotile mean?
Monotile means a prototile tiling monohedrally; any shape able to completely tile some space on its own (allowing for translation, rotation, and reflection).
How do you use monotile in a sentence?
This naturally led to serious rumination about the possible existence of a single tile, or monotile, that forces non-periodic global structure.
What part of speech is monotile?
Monotile is a noun.
What is the plural of monotile?
The plural of monotile is monotiles.

Words near monotile in the dictionary

  1. monothionic acid
  2. monothiophosphate
  3. monothiophosphates
  4. monotic
  5. monotically
  6. monotile
  7. monotiles
  8. monotiling
  9. monotilings
  10. monotimbral
  11. monotint

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: monotile (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-monotile.wav.

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