Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Symmetrical \Sym*met"ric*al\, a. [Cf. F. sym['e]trique. See Symmetry.]
Involving or exhibiting symmetry; proportional in parts; having its parts in due proportion as to dimensions; as, a symmetrical body or building.
(Biol.) Having the organs or parts of one side corresponding with those of the other; having the parts in two or more series of organs the same in number; exhibiting a symmetry. See Symmetry, 2.
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(Bot.)
Having an equal number of parts in the successive circles of floral organs; -- said of flowers.
Having a likeness in the form and size of floral organs of the same kind; regular.
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(Math.) Having a common measure; commensurable. (b) Having corresponding parts or relations.
Note: A curve or a plane figure is symmetrical with respect to a given line, and a line, surface, or solid with respect to a plane, when for each point on one side of the line or plane there is a corresponding point on the other side, so situated that the line joining the two corresponding points is perpendicular to the line or plane and is bisected by it. Two solids are symmetrical when they are so situated with respect to an intervening plane that the several points of their surfaces thus correspond to each other in position and distance. In analysis, an expression is symmetrical with respect to several letters when any two of them may change places without affecting the expression; as, the expression a^ 2b + ab^ 2 + a^ 2c + ac^ 2 + b^ 2c + bc^ 2, is symmetrical with respect to the letters a, b, c. [1913 Webster] -- Sym*met"ric*al*ly, adv. -- Sym*met"ric*al*ness, n.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1751, from symmetry + -ical. Related: Symmetrically (1570s).
Wiktionary
a. Exhibiting symmetry; having harmonious or proportionate arrangement of parts; having corresponding parts or relations
WordNet
adj. having similarity in size, shape, and relative position of corresponding parts [syn: symmetric] [ant: asymmetrical]
exhibiting equivalence or correspondence among constituents of an entity or between different entities [syn: harmonious, proportionate]
Usage examples of "symmetrical".
Her body was graciously formed, her breasts symmetrical and firm, their aureolas were the colour of ripe mulberries, the nipples upturned and out-thrust.
They have parallel-parked their bimbo boxes in identical computer-designed Burbclave street patterns and secreted themselves in symmetrical sheetrock shitholes with vinyl floors and ill-fitting woodwork and no sidewalks, vast house farms out in the loglo wilderness, a culture medium for a medium culture.
She had the inhumanly symmetrical features that only a first-line clade could afford to buy for the alpha instances of their phenotype.
Spotless and deodorized and exactly symmetrical and a drawer full of peepshow underwear.
In the village of Phullendorf in Germany early in this century there was an old woman who sought alms from place to place, exhibiting to the curious four symmetrical breasts, arranged parallel.
Each impactor and each launch had to meet exacting specification and schedule constraints to make the implosion as symmetrical as physics would allow, or the biggest fiasco in human history would result.
Just then, too, Sah-luma appeared handsomer than ever in the halfsubdued tints of radiance that flickered through the lowered paleblue silken awnings: the effect of the room thus shadowed was as of a soft azure mountain mist lit sideways by the sun,--a mist through which the white-garmented, symmetrical figure of the Laureate stood forth in curiously brilliant outlines, as though every curve of supple shoulder and proud throat was traced with a pencil of pure light.
The nitrogen-fixing rhizobia in root nodules, the mycetomes of insects, and the enzyme-producing colonies in the digestive tracts of many animals are variations of this meticulously symmetrical symbiosis.
He sketched three cyclohexane rings in various conformations, all bound together in the symmetrical, strainless cage of carbon atoms characteristic of the structure of diamond.
Olympia, which, light and symmetrical as a celestial sylphid, passed swiftly onwards.
A slim but shapely mollusc known as Terebellum or augur, to mention another conceited little disturber of your meditations, stands on its spire in the sand, and screws as you tread, cutting, a delightfully symmetrical hole in the sole of your foot, and retaining the core--perfect as that of a diamond drill.
But after the dread feeling of worry and want was finally eradicated from his mind by the abolition of the individual accumulative system, he then began to apply himself carefully to physical development, and as running, jumping and acrobatic work have the best symmetrical effects upon the human form, this kind of exercise was extensively followed, and as each generation succeeded in outdoing the feats of the preceding one, the entire nation finally evolved into one of extraordinary springing propensities.
The complete rise and fall has been termed the great symmetrical barometric wave of November.
As Bernard came in, this gentleman turned and exhibited the ambrosial beard, the symmetrical shape, the monocular appendage, of Captain Lovelock.
Ed Tanager was vaguely aware of this although time and arithmetic were now encompassed by the symmetrical face of the manometer dial and the distorted face of his daughter.