Number & MeasureGreek → English
Polyhedron
/ˌpɑːliˈhiːdrən/noun
A solid figure bounded by flat polygonal faces.
The Greek roots
πολύς
polýs
many
ἕδρα
hédra
seat, base
Literally: “many-seated”
The story of the word
ἕδρα is a seat, and a polyhedron has many of them, because each flat face is a base the solid can sit on. The same seat turns up in cathedral, the church holding a bishop's throne, and in the Sanhedrin, a sitting-together of judges. English took the mathematical word in the 1570s out of the Euclidean tradition.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 1570s
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
tetrahedroncathedralSanhedrinpolygon
In a sentence
Every convex polyhedron obeys Euler's rule: faces plus vertices minus edges equals two.