SYMMETRY • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Symmetry

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/sˈɪmətri/ Listen

noun

Symmetry n.

A due proportion of the several parts of a body to each other; adaptation of the form or dimensions of the several parts of a thing to each other; the union and conformity of the members of a work to the whole.

(Biol.) The law of likeness; similarity of structure; regularity in form and arrangement; orderly and similar distribution of parts, such that an animal may be divided into parts which are structurally symmetrical. Note: Bilateral symmetry, or two-sidedness, in vertebrates, etc., is that in which the body can be divided into symmetrical halves by a vertical plane passing through the middle; radial symmetry, as in echinoderms, is that in which the individual parts are arranged symmetrically around a central axis; serial symmetry, or zonal symmetry, as in earthworms, is that in which the segments or metameres of the body are disposed in a zonal manner one after the other in a longitudinal axis. This last is sometimes called metamerism.

(Bot.)

(a)

Equality in the number of parts of the successive circles in a flower.

(b)

Likeness in the form and size of floral organs of the same kind; regularity.

Axis of symmetry. (Geom.) See under Axis.

Respective symmetry, that disposition of parts in which only the opposite sides are equal to each other.

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Etymology of 'Symmetry'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Symmetry" Quotes from Famous Books

... cottages, showing a great variety of beautiful designs, cosey, vine-clad and picturesque, environed by gardens and lawns, have been added to the architectural display of the village. Order, symmetry and cleanliness, have become the established law of ...

— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson

... settlers and for German colonists. A noticeable circumstance was the fact that the taste of the architect had differed from that of the proprietor—the former having manifestly been a pedant and desirous of symmetry, and the latter having wished only for comfort. Consequently he (the proprietor) had dispensed with all windows on one side of the mansion, and had caused to be inserted, in their place, only a small aperture which, doubtless, ...

— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... foolish! Reason for a moment—any presentation of this matter calls for the highest ability; it involves sifting of evidence; symmetry of arrangement; cohesiveness of method, logic of argument, persuasiveness of advocacy, subtleties of acumen, charms of eloquence—all the elements of the greatest ...

— The Angel of Lonesome Hill • Frederick Landis

... hundred thousand dirhams I give to thee as a reward for the glad tidings thou bringest me of my release from yonder dog of the Thakafites."[FN96] After this, the Commander of the Faithful, Abd al-Malik bin Marwan, heard of her beauty and loveliness, her stature and symmetry, her sweet speech and the amorous grace of her glances and sent to her, to ask her in marriage;—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to ...

— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton

... say:—in this whole work I have not gone beyond my vouchers. Richard's face is very comely, and corresponds singularly with the portrait of him in the preface to the Royal and Noble Authors. He has a sort of tippet of ermine doubled about his neck, which seems calculated to disguise some want of symmetry thereabouts. I have given two prints(51) of this drawing, which is on large folio paper, that it may lead to a discovery of the original, if ...

— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole

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