Word.ws English Dictionary

sesquialterate

/sɛskwɪˈaltərət/

sesquialterate adjective: in a ratio of 3 to 2 or 1½ times to 1.

Adjective

sesquialterate (not comparable)

  1. (archaic) In a ratio of 3 to 2 or 1½ times to 1.
    • […]the ratio of 3 to 2, which is sesquialter, forms the symphony diapente[…]1818, Iamblichus, translated by Thomas Taylor, Life of Pythagoras, page 328
    • People ignorant of geometry did not know the sesquialterate ratio of the sphere, cylinder, and cone, and therefor no man could know it[…]1859, Frances Power Cobbe, An Essay on Intuitive Morals: Being an Attempt to Popularize Ethical Science, page 84

Examples of sesquialterate in a sentence

  • 9 and 6 are in a sesquialterate ratio.
  • from Kepler's Rule of the periodical times of the Planets being in a sesquialterate proportion of their distances from the centers of their orbs I deduced […]1888, Sir Isaac Newton, Portsmouth Collection of Books and Papers Written or Belonging to Sir Isaac Newton (page xviii)

Synonyms of sesquialterate

Forms of sesquialterate

alternative formsesqui-alterate

Origin of sesquialterate

From Latin sesquialter (“one and a half times”) + -ate (adjective-forming suffix), from sesqui- (“a half and a”) + alter (“another, a second”).

Questions about sesquialterate

What does sesquialterate mean?
Sesquialterate means in a ratio of 3 to 2 or 1½ times to 1.
How do you use sesquialterate in a sentence?
9 and 6 are in a sesquialterate ratio.
What part of speech is sesquialterate?
Sesquialterate is an adjective.
How do you pronounce sesquialterate?
Sesquialterate is pronounced /sɛskwɪˈaltərət/.

Words near sesquialterate in the dictionary

  1. sesquialter
  2. sesquialtera
  3. sesquialteral
  4. sesquialteran
  5. sesquialteras
  6. sesquialterate
  7. sesquialterous
  8. sesquialters
  9. sesquiannual
  10. sesquibasic
  11. sesquicarbonate

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sesquialterate (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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Cite this entry: “sesquialterate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sesquialterate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.