quadrals

Noun

quadral (countable and uncountable, plural quadrals)

1. A grammatical number referring to four (or more) things.
   • These are the three best claims for quadrals. There are several false trails in the literature, that is, suggestions of other Austronesian languages with quadrals, which turn out in fact to have four number values not five.2000, Greville G. Corbett, Number, page 30
2. A set of points with all the combinatorial properties of a quadric (a quadric being the set of points of PG(n, q) whose coordinates satisfy a quadratic equation).
   • "A polynomial P(x₁, ..., xₙ is called quadral if it splits into a product of quadratic (or linear) functions in the complex field of coefficients."1952, American Mathematical Society, “Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society”, in Journal of the American Mathematical Society, page 184
3. (rhetoric) A set of four phrases, separated by pauses when speaking or commas when writing.
   • The first instinctive step in revising written matter looks to an effecting of quadrals; any later revision aims at a perfecting of the rhythma.1925, John Hubert Scott, Rhythmic prose
4. A foursome.
   • I like to call 4-person interactions and relational systems 'quadrals' (845—846). Their potentially visible occurrence in encounter type groups probably varies widely, and is not often discriminated unless in groups literally composed of couples.1998, Godfrey T Barrett-Lennard, Carl Rogers' Helping System: Journey & Substance, →ISBN, page 162

See all 6 meanings of quadral