pyramid

pyr·a·mid

(pĭr′ə-mĭd)

a. A solid figure with a polygonal base and triangular faces that meet at a common point.

b. Something shaped like this polyhedron.

a. A massive monument of ancient Egypt having a rectangular base and four triangular faces culminating in a single apex, built over or around a crypt or tomb.

b. Any of various similar constructions, especially a four-sided Mesoamerican temple having stepped sides and a flat top surmounted by chambers.

3. The transactions involved in pyramiding stock.

4. Anatomy A structure or part suggestive of a pyramid in shape.

v. pyr·a·mid·ed, pyr·a·mid·ing, pyr·a·mids

v.tr.

1. To place or build in the shape of a pyramid.

2. To build (an argument or thesis, for example) progressively from a basic general premise.

3. To speculate in (stock) by making a series of buying and selling transactions in which paper profits are used as margin for buying more stock.

v.intr.

1. To assume the shape of a pyramid.

2. To increase rapidly and on a widening base.

3. To pyramid stocks.

[Latin pȳramis, pȳramid-, from Greek pūramis, of unknown origin.]

py·ram′i·dal (pĭ-răm′ĭ-dl), pyr′a·mid′ic (-mĭd′ĭk), pyr′a·mid′i·cal (-ĭ-kəl) adj.

py·ram′i·dal·ly adv.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Adj.

pyramidal - resembling a pyramid

pyramidic, pyramidical

pointed - having a point

Translations

piramidalan

piramidale

pyramidal

[pɪˈræmɪdl] ADJ → piramidal

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

pyramidal

[pɪˈræmɪd^əl] (formal) adj → pyramidal(e)pyramid selling n (BUSINESS) → vente f pyramidale

Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

pyramidal

adj → pyramidenförmig or -artig

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

pyramidal

[pɪˈræmɪdl] adj → piramidale

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

These rhombs have certain angles, and the three which form the pyramidal base of a single cell on one side of the comb, enter into the composition of the bases of three adjoining cells on the opposite side.

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At one point was an isolated pyramidal rock, crowned by a great tree, which appeared to be separated by a cleft from the main crag.

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It is about ninety-seven miles in length, and seventy- eight in breadth, rising gradually into three pyramidal summits or cones; the highest, Mouna Roa, being eighteen thousand feet above the level of the sea, so as to domineer over the whole archipelago, and to be a landmark over a wide extent of ocean.

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* An arrow with a pyramidal head of iron and copper spiral wings, by which a rotatory motion was communicated.

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In the south-west, and almost in our course, I saw the pyramidal loom of some vessel's sails.

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The Indian had selected for this desirable purpose one of those steep, pyramidal hills, which bear a strong resemblance to artificial mounds, and which so frequently occur in the valleys of America.

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Half an hour later I was sitting on a bench inspecting, with strong interest, a noble monolith which we were skimming by--a monolith not shaped by man, but by Nature's free great hand--a massy pyramidal rock eighty feet high, devised by Nature ten million years ago against the day when a man worthy of it should need it for his monument.

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It was a pretty scene outside the house: the farmers and their families were moving about the lawn, among the flowers and shrubs, or along the broad straight road leading from the east front, where a carpet of mossy grass spread on each side, studded here and there with a dark flat-boughed cedar, or a grand pyramidal fir sweeping the ground with its branches, all tipped with a fringe of paler green.

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That day I happened to be wandering through the woods alongside of the lake of Silvaplana, and I halted beside a huge, pyramidal and towering rock not far from Surlei.

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Away down toward the far end of the church (I thought it was really clear at the far end, but discovered afterward that it was in the centre, under the dome,) stood the thing they call the baldacchino--a great bronze pyramidal frame-work like that which upholds a mosquito bar.

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Roughly pyramidal in shape and hollowed out, I perceive.

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At a little distance, on the edge of the dock, our observer remarked their son, who had found a place where, between the sides of two big ships, he could see the ferry-boats pass; the large pyramidal low-laden ferry-boats of American waters.

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