Crossword clues for quincunx
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Quincunx \Quin"cunx\, n. [L., fr. quinque five + uncia an ounce. The quincunx was marked by five small spots or balls. See Five, and Ounce the weight.]
An arrangement of things by fives in a square or a rectangle, one being placed at each corner and one in the middle; especially, such an arrangement of trees repeated indefinitely, so as to form a regular group with rows running in various directions.
(Astrol.) The position of planets when distant from each other five signs, or 150[deg].
--Hutton.(Bot.) A quincuncial arrangement, as of the parts of a flower in [ae]stivation. See Quincuncial, 2.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1640s, originally astrological, of planetary alignments, from Latin, literally "five twelfths" (especially "five unciae," that is, "five-twelfths of an as," the basic unit of Roman currency), from quinque "five" (see quinque-) + uncia "ounce; a twelfth part (of anything)," related to unus "one" (see one). Applied, especially in garden design, to arrangements like the five pips on a playing card (1660s). Related: Quincuncial.
Wiktionary
n. 1 An arrangement of five units in a pattern corresponding to the five-spot on dice, playing cards, or dominoes. 2 (context astrology English) An angle of five-twelfths of a circle, or 150°, between two objects. 3 A bronze coin minted during the Rome, valued at five-twelfths of an as.
Wikipedia
A quincunx is a geometric pattern consisting of five points arranged in a cross, with four of them forming a square or rectangle and a fifth at its center. It forms the arrangement of five units in the pattern corresponding to the five-spot on six-sided dice, playing cards, and dominoes. It is represented in Unicode as or (for the die pattern) .
The quincunx was an Ancient Roman bronze coin produced during the Roman Republic. The word quincunx comes from Latin quinque which means "five" and uncia which means "one twelfth", because the coin was valued at five-twelfths of an as (also called a libra). This value was sometimes symbolized by a pattern of five dots arranged like the points of a die, so this pattern also came to be called quincunx. It was only produced during the Second Punic War (218 to 204 BC). It was not part of the standard Roman monetary system and was produced by mints at Luceria (mod. Lucera), Teate (mod. Chieti), Larinum (mod. Larino), and northern Apulia.
A coin with the same value was minted in Capua, during the Second Punic War, after the defeat of Cannae.
A quincunx is a geometric pattern consisting of five points, four in a square with one more in the middle of the square.
Quincunx may also refer to:
- Quincunx matrix, a 2×2 Hadamard matrix that generates points in a diagonal lattice pattern
- Bean machine, also called a quincunx, a machine designed by Sir Francis Galton to demonstrate normal distributions, consisting of an array of pins in a diagonal lattice pattern
- Quincuncial map, a method of mapping the globe onto a square so that the poles map to the five points of a quincunx
- Place des Quinconces, a city square in Bordeaux, France, named for the quincunx pattern in which its trees were planted
- In 19th-century mathematics, "quincunx" was used to describe a rhombic lattice, the points of intersection of two families of equally spaced parallel lines
Quincunxes in literature include:
- The Garden of Cyrus or The Quincunciall Lozenge is a 1658 philosophical treatise by Sir Thomas Browne concerning interconnections in art and science involving the number five and the quincunx pattern
- Quincunx is a lake with an island containing Mistress Masham's Repose in the 1946 novel of that name by T. H. White
- The Quincunx of Time is a 1973 science fiction novel by James Blish. The title refers to an orchard in the Academy of Plato, planted in a quincunx pattern
- The Avignon Quintet is a set of five novels that its author, Lawrence Durrell, described as forming a quincunx. The fifth, Quinx (1985), has a plot that includes the discovery of a stone quincunx pattern
- The Quincunx is a 1989 novel by Charles Palliser that traces five related families over five generations
In biology, "quincuncial" has multiple meanings but does not generally refer to the five-point quincunx pattern:
- Quincuncial aestivation is an arrangement of the parts of a flower bud prior to opening found in some plants
- Quincuncina is a genus of freshwater mussels named for the pattern of nodules on its shells
The following uses relate to the original meaning of a quincunx as a 5/12 fraction rather than to the geometric pattern:
- Quincunx (Roman coin), a bronze coin with the value of 5/12 of an as
- Quincunx (astrology), an angle of 150°, 5/12 of a complete circle
Usage examples of "quincunx".
But even if the establishment truly is a Quincunx front, that organization always charges whatever the traffic will bear.
If Munngralla had good soundproofing in his back rooms and upstairs apartments - which as the local agent of the Quincunx he more than likely did - those bare hints of noise implied that all hell was breaking loose somewhere.
He knew what sort of sentence the Brotherhood would pass on someone who used their name and their password to bait a trap, but it was likely to be a long time indeed before the Quincunx could get a working agent onto Darvell to take care of the problem.
Brotherhood would pass on someone who used their name and their password to bait a trap, but it was likely to be a long time indeed before the Quincunx could get a working agent onto Darvell to take care of the problem.
Here, however, the quincunx was multiplied five times for the quincunx device itself was the element that made up the larger arrangement.
In short, it was a kind of quincunx raised to the power of two, a quincunx of quincunxes, apparently carved from a single and enormous slab of white marble.
Huffams and the Mompessons, but I am not sure that I have ever seen such an arrangement as this quincunx of quincunxes, as you aptly called it.
But you know, John, the quincunx of quincunxes represents not the triumph of the Mompessons over the other branches, but the union of the two founding families.
Well, since she could not give me the solution to the quincunx, I now had no chance of doing what she had hoped.
Ahead of me now, however, I saw in the exact centre of the quincunx planted by Jeoffrey Huffam the decaying stump of a fifth.
Tree Frog beer since the affair with the Quincunx, when somebody had tried to poison him by slipping mescalomide into a bottle of Export Dark.
The matter is that your moon in the First is quincunx your moon in the Seventh, you simply have no idea how to be a wife.
The Quincunx boasted that it could supply a customer with anything-from the merely hard-to-get, like tholovine, to the strictly illegal-as long as the customer was willing to meet their price.
Now, facing the Mias, stood the harrow formation of the quincunx, from which poured such a devastating volley that the attackers shrank back upon themselves.
So if I have understood you, the choice of which part of the design should be which tincture depends on how the three tinctures of the Huffam and Mompesson quincunxes have been incorporated to form this larger design?