Pyramid definitions and example sentences on Wordnik

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noun A solid figure with a polygonal base and triangular faces that meet at a common point.
noun Something shaped like this polyhedron.
noun 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.

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A massive structure of polygonal, usually square plan, the sides of which slope, each usually in one plane, to a common apex. Pyramids have been erected in different parts of the world, especially in Egypt, where there are numerous groups in different styles of execution and states of preservation. By far the most interesting of these groups is that of Ghizeh, near Cairo, where there are three pyramids of large size, and several smaller ones. All the Egyptian pyramids were built for tombs, and certainly in most cases, if not in all, for royal personages. They are remarkable not only for the great size of many of them, but for the manner in which they were hermetically sealed, there being no external opening of any kind, nor any indication of the place in which the mummy had been deposited; on the contrary, some of them exhibit very ingenious arrangements intended to lead astray those searching for the sepulchral chamber. Everything was planned in their construction to insure permanence, concealment, and security from violation. Of the three great pyramids at Ghizeh, the largest and by far the most important and interesting is the so-called Great Pyramid, in regard to which a very extensive literature exists, and which has frequently been measured and elaborately described. It is the largest work of man's hands in the world, having been originally 481 feet in height, and each of the sides of its very nearly square base measuring on the average nearly 756 feet (9068.8 in., Petrie). It is the only one remaining of the “seven wonders of the world.” Its interior structure is more elaborate than that of any of the other pyramids, and some of the features which it displays are peculiar, and remarkable as showing the desire of the builders that at least one geometrical fact of fundamental importance should be incorporated into the structure. Thus the height of the Great Pyramid bears, with remarkable precision, the same relation to the total length of the four sides of its base that the radius of a circle has to its circumference, and other indications of the π ratio exist in its interior. This and other interesting peculiarities of this pyramid have led various persons, some of whom have been eminent in science, to adopt the view that it was a divinely inspired building, and that the so-called “coffer” contained within the principal sepulchral chamber was intended to serve as a standard of weights and measures and a record of various fundamental facts in geophysics, and not for a sarcophagus. Of the manner in which the huge stones of which this pyramid is built were raised to their present position but little is definitely known, but it is inferred that the work was done without the aid of complicated machinery; that they were shaped — to a very considerable extent at least — by the use of saws of bronze, the teeth of which were gems or hard stones, has been clearly shown by the most recent investigations. The date of the Great Pyramid, which is believed to have been built by or for King Shufu (Cheops) of the fourth dynasty, is variously fixed by Egyptologists at from 2450 to 4235 (b. c.) The latter is the date assigned by Mariette.
In geometry, a solid contained by a plane polygon as base and other planes meeting in a point. This point is called the vertex of the pyramid; and the planes which meet in the vertex are called the sides, which are necessarily all triangles, having for their bases the sides of the base of the pyramid. Any pyramid is in volume one third of a prism that has the same base and altitude. Pyramids are denominated from the figures of their bases, being triangular, square, pentagonal, etc., according as the base is a triangle, a square, a pentagon, etc. Knowledges are as pyramids, whereof history is the basis. Bacon, Advancement of Learning, ii. 165.
In crystallography, a form, in any system but the isometric, bounded by eight, twelve, sixteen, or twenty-four planes, and consisting of two four-, six-, eight-, or twelve-sided pyramids placed base to base. The name is also extended to embrace any form the planes of which intersect all three of the axes; in the monoclinic system it includes only four, and in the triclinic only two planes, being in each case an open form. If the plants intersect the lateral axes at the assumed unit distances, the pyramid is called a unit pyramid; other forms are designated macropyramids, clinopyramids, etc. (see these terms), according to their position. In the tetragonal system a unit pyramid is also called a protopyramid, or pyramid of the first order or series, and a square octahedron formed by pyramidal planes parallel to one of the lateral axes is in distinction called a deuteropyramid or diametral pyramid, or one of the second order or series. These terms are also used in an analogous manner in the hexagonal system.

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Now, a computer in the shape of a pyramid is a good idea.
This pyramid was a copy, the writer of the obituary said, of the temple of the God of the Smoking Mirror at Tenochtitlan in the Templo Mayor Precinct in Mexico. — EQMM, August 2005
The top of the pyramid was a square about one hundred meters on each side. — AnalogSFF,September2008
Some blocks of the pyramid were almost entirely his own. — The Life of Napoleon I (Volume 1 of 2)
You will also find that underneath the pyramid is the Latin inscription "Novus Ordo Seclorum", which has can be roughly translated to read "New World Order". — MyLinkVault Newest Links

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pyramid

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