tessellate
/ˈtɛsəleɪt/
tessellate adjective: tessellated.
Adjective
tessellate
Verb
tessellate (third-person singular simple present tessellates, present participle tessellating, simple past and past participle tessellated)
- To cover with tiles or stones, as a mosaic; to tile.
- to cover a two-dimensional shape, such that multiple copies of itself placed edge to edge cover an area leaving no space between the shapes.
- Regular hexagons tessellate.
- To completely fill (an area) when multiple copies of one or more two-dimensional shapes are placed edge to edge.
- It is possible to tessellate the plane with equilateral triangles and regular hexagons.
Forms of tessellate
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| alternative form | tesselate |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | tessellates |
| present participle | tessellating |
| past participle | tessellated |
| past | tessellated |
Origin of tessellate
Learned borrowing from Latin tessellātus, from tessella, diminutive of tessera; from Ancient Greek τέσσαρες (téssares), from Proto-Indo-European *kʷetwóres.
Words formed from tessellate
Phrases with tessellate
Questions about tessellate
- What does tessellate mean?
- Tessellate means tessellated.
- What part of speech is tessellate?
- Tessellate can be an adjective or a verb.
- How do you pronounce tessellate?
- Tessellate is pronounced /ˈtɛsəleɪt/.
Words near tessellate in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: tessellate (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: en-us-tesselate.ogg, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-tessellate.wav.
Cite this entry: “tessellate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tessellate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.