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.
Wiktionary
adv. In a symmetrical manner; so as to show symmetry
WordNet
adv. in a symmetrical manner; "they were symmetrically arranged" [ant: asymmetrically]
Usage examples of "symmetrically".
The body and the legs were as symmetrically human as Nature could have fashioned them, and the feet, too, were human in shape, but of monstrous proportions.
This flue conducts the gases of the kilns to the stack, which is symmetrically located with reference to the kiln house.
There was a row of arched loopholes or windows about four feet wide and five feet high, spaced quite symmetrically along the points of the star and at its inner angles, and with the bottoms about four feet from the glaciated surface.
These images that you view across the carved and silver-gilt work of the iconostas, where they are ranged symmetrically upon the golden screen opening their large fixed eyes and raising their brown hand with the fingers turned in a symbolic fashion, produce, by means of their somewhat savage, superhuman and immutable traditional aspect, a religious impression not to be found in more advanced works of art.
In this affection the colored sweating appears symmetrically in various parts of the body, the parts commonly affected being the cheeks, forehead, side of the nose, whole face, chest, abdomen, backs of the hands, finger-tips, and the flexors, flexures at the axillae, groins, and popliteal spaces.
They appeared in perfect training, neither too fat nor too fine, mettlesome as colts, steady as draught-horses, deep-breathed as oxen, disciplined to work together as symmetrically as a single sculler pulls his pair of oars.
How symmetrically, how beautifully, how inevitably, the little particles pile up the cone, which is ever building and unbuilding itself, always aiming at the stability which is found only at a certain fixed angle!
This flue conducts the gases of the kilns to the stack, which is symmetrically located with reference to the kiln house.
Here Lord Grimthorpe inserted a circular window, the design being such as a child might make who was given a sheet of cardboard with a large circle drawn on it, which he was requested to cover symmetrically with a number of half-crowns, shillings, and sixpences.
Reflecting on this case, it occurred to me that if the Melipona had made its spheres at some given distance from each other, and had made them of equal sizes and had arranged them symmetrically in a double layer, the resulting structure would probably have been as perfect as the comb of the hive-bee.
Through the terrible and deafening roar of those voices, amid the square masses of troops standing motionless as if turned to stone, hundreds of riders composing the suites moved carelessly but symmetrically and above all freely, and in front of them two men- the Emperors.
Behind the desk and Lieutenant Mirchau's back hung, again symmetrically echeloned, six framed and glassed paper rectangles, illegible from where I was sitting.
This fair, smooth-faced young man, whose symmetrically arranged hair gave him the air of a large and neat schoolboy, met the Assistant Commissioner's request with a doubtful look, and spoke with bated breath.
Nevertheless, when the apex encountered an obstacle in its downward course, the growing part became so uniformly and symmetrically curved, that its appearance indicated not mere mechanical bending, but increased growth along the whole convex side, due to the irritation of the apex.
By the fourteenth century the sculptors were showing Christ in full face, with all parts of the body symmetrically disposed on either side of a central, structural line.