Crossword clues for trapezium
trapezium
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Trapezium \Tra*pe"zi*um\, n.; pl. E. Trapeziums, L. Trapezia. [NL., fr. Gr. ? a little table, an irregular four-sided figure, dim. of ? a table, for ?; ? (see Tetra-) + ? foot, akin to ? foot; hence, originally, a table with four feet. See Foot.]
(Geom.) A plane figure bounded by four right lines, of which no two are parallel.
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(Anat.)
A bone of the carpus at the base of the first metacarpal, or thumb.
A region on the ventral side of the brain, either just back of the pons Varolii, or, as in man, covered by the posterior extension of its transverse fibers.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1560s, from Late Latin trapezium, from Greek trapezion "irregular quadrilateral," literally "a little table," diminutive of trapeza "table, dining table," from tra- "four" (see four) + peza "foot, edge," related to pous (see foot (n.)). Before 1540s, Latin editions of Euclid used the Arabic-derived word helmariphe. As the name of a bone in the wrist, it is recorded from 1840.
Wiktionary
n. 1 (context geometry British English) A four-sided polygon with two sides parallel; a trapezoid (modern sense) 2 (context geometry US English) A four-sided polygon with no parallel sides and no sides equal; a simple convex irregular quadrilateral. 3 (context anatomy English) The trapezium bone of the wrist. 4 A region on the ventral side of the brain, either just back of the pons Varolii, or, as in man, covered by the posterior extension of its transverse fibers.
WordNet
n. a quadrilateral with no parallel sides [ant: parallelogram]
a multiple star in the constellation of Orion [syn: the Trapezium]
the wrist bone on the thumb side of the hand that articulates with the 1st and 2nd metacarpals [syn: trapezium bone, os trapezium]
[also: trapezia (pl)]
Wikipedia
The word trapezium, used to describe a geometric shape, has two contradictory meanings:
- (outside the US and Canada) – a quadrilateral with one pair of parallel sides, known in the US as a trapezoid.
- (in the US and Canada) – a quadrilateral with no parallel sides (a shape known elsewhere as a general irregular quadrilateral).
The word trapezium can also mean:
- Trapezium (bone), a bone in the wrist
- Trapezium (astronomy), a group of stars in the Orion Nebula
- Trapezium (play), a play by Henry Rathvon
The trapezium bone (greater multangular bone) is a carpal bone in the wrist. It forms the radial border of the carpal tunnel.
Usage examples of "trapezium".
The trapezium shrank before their eyes, indicating that the chasers, too, had shifted from orbital motion to hyperbolic and were coming together, bright with the heat of the increased drives.
It was a quadrilateral of the kind the Greeks termed a trapezium, having no side parallel to any other.
Looking up from her work, she made out the distant trapezium of an apparently flat-topped mountain dominating the murky horizon.
Ever ahead loomed the low, flat-topped trapezium of the cauldron-mountain, dark through the haze.
One of the reasons she had given up swinging an ax was that her deltoids and trapezium were too big to allow her to bend her arms all the way around behind her.
As I looked back towards the hotel, the front door shot a long trapezium of yellow light across the sandy path.
Steel slid through blood and then jammed against the trapezium bone below the first knuckle of my thumb.
The streetlamp came on, throwing a yellow trapezium on the flowered wallpaper and the pale areas where the pictures had hung, and, as if this was the signal triggering something in his brain, Taffy got up and began the final stage.
The bullet hole was a perfect little blue puncture in the smooth skin, already surrounded by a halo of inflammation, and the bullet was trapped between his ribs and the sheet of flat, hard trapezium muscles.
Now the inner line was more like a trapezium, narrower at the top, spreading at the bottom.
We fell among the stars of the Trapezium, which glowed with the lovely green of interstellar ionized oxygen.
On closer inspection, however, it was apparent that it had distinctly unnatural features: The rock was shaped like a trapezium, and its smooth surface glistened in the rays of the morning sunshine coming from low in the sky behind him.
The wound extended from the styloid process directly across to the trapezium, dividing all the muscles and blood-vessels, cutting through bones.
At the heart lay the Trapezium, the four hottest, massive stars, whose phenomenal ultraviolet output illuminated and energized the whole colossal expanse of interstellar gas.
The remainder of the trapezium formed the garden, which was much lower than the level of the Rue Polonceau, which caused the walls to be very much higher on the inside than on the outside.