Number & MeasureGreek → English
Pyramid
/ˈpɪrəmɪd/noun
A solid with a polygonal base and triangular sides meeting at a point, and the monumental tombs built to that shape in Egypt.
The Greek roots
πυραμίς
pyramís
pyramid, wheat cake
Literally: “wheat cake”
Follow a root:πυραμίς1 word
The story of the word
The Greeks named the Egyptian monuments; the builders themselves called them mer. Πυραμίς was also a small wheat cake, and one long-standing suggestion is that Greek visitors reached for the cake's name, while another traces the word to an Egyptian source. The link to πῦρ, fire, that later mystics enjoyed is a coincidence of sound and nothing more.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 16th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
In a sentence
Stack the oranges in a pyramid and the bottom row takes all the weight.