Number & MeasureGreek → English
Rhombus
/ˈrɒmbəs/noun
A four-sided figure with all sides equal.
The Greek roots
ῥόμβος
rhómbos
spinning top, whirling thing
Literally: “the thing that spins”
Follow a root:ῥόμβος2 words
The story of the word
Ῥόμβος comes from ῥέμβεσθαι, to whirl or spin, and named the bullroarer swung on a cord in Greek rites, along with the spinning top and the magic wheel. The lozenge shape of that whirled slat gave geometry its name. Latin also used rhombus for the turbot, a flatfish with the same outline, and the fish kept the name in scientific Latin long after the shape took over in English.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 1560s
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
rhomboidrhombicrhombohedron
In a sentence
A square is a rhombus that happens to have right angles.