cube - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

A cube

From Old French cube, from Latin cubus, from Ancient Greek κύβος (kúbos).

Displaced Old English tæfel ("cube, die, game with dice or tables").

cube (plural cubes)

  1. (geometry) A regular polyhedron having six identical square faces.
    When the math teacher is teaching the class about cubes, he asks them to imagine a cardboard box whose width, length, and height are all the same.
  2. Any object more or less in the form of a cube.
    Hyponyms: sugar cube, stock cube
    A: One cube or two? B: Oh, no sugar for me, thanks.
  3. (mathematics) The third power of a number, value, term or expression.
    Antonym: cube root
    The cube of 2 is 8.
    The cube of 0.5 is 0.125.
  4. (computing) A data structure consisting of a three-dimensional array; a data cube.
  5. A Rubik's cube style puzzle, not necessarily in the shape of a cube.
  6. (informal, automotive) Clipping of cubic inch(es).
    As if the 383 weren't already a roaring beast, in 1972 they bored it out some more, bringing it up to 400 cubes. This 400-cube monster could launch a land yacht like the Plymouth Fury from zero to sixty in under ten seconds.
  7. (1950s slang, dated) An extremely socially conventional or conservative person, moreso than even a square.

geometry: polyhedron having of six identical square faces

object more or less in the form of a cube

arithmetic: number raised to the third power

cube (third-person singular simple present cubes, present participle cubing, simple past and past participle cubed)

  1. (transitive, arithmetic) To raise to the third power; to determine the result of multiplying by itself twice.
    Three cubed can be written as 33, and equals twenty-seven.
    • 1953, Samuel Beckett, Watt, [Paris]: Olympia Press, →OCLC:
      From this severe trial Mr. Nackybal emerged with distinction, having in his cubing made only twenty-five slight mistakes out of the forty-six cubes demanded, and in his rooting, out of the fifty-three extractions propounded, committed a mere matter of four trifling errors!
  2. (transitive) To form into the shape of a cube.
  3. (transitive) To cut into cubes.
    Cube the ham right after adding the curry to the rice.
  4. (intransitive) To use a Rubik's cube.
    He likes to cube now and then.

arithmetic: to raise to the third power

to cut into cubes

cube (not comparable)

  1. (postpositive) Used in the names of units of area formed by multiplying a unit of length by itself twice.
    • 1971, Gwen White, Antique Toys And Their Background, page 181:
      Beautiful peepshows with hand-coloured engravings by Martin Englebrecht, 1684-1756, were produced in Augsburg about 1740. The box, about six inches cube, contained slots to take four cut-out scenes, the front of the box had another cut-out, and the back was painted with a landscape, making six 'curtains' in all.

Clipped form of cubicle (with intentional reference to their common shape per cube, etymology 1), which from Latin cubiculum (“a small bedchamber or lounge”), from cubare (“to lie down”).

cube (plural cubes)

  1. A cubicle, especially one of those found in offices.
    My co-worker annoys me by throwing things over the walls of my cube.

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

cube

  1. feminine singular of cub (“bobtailed”)

cube

  1. indefinite dative/ablative singular of cubë

From Tosk variant cupe, from cup (“odd”). Similar formation with teke, meaning single-barrel gun, and çifte.[1]

cube f (plural **cube, definite cubja, definite plural cubet)

  1. pocket pistol, small gun[2]
    Synonyms: topanxhë, dungë, teke

  2. ^ Çabej, E. (1987), “cube”, in Studime etimologjike në fushë të shqipes (in Albanian), volumes III: C–D, Tirana, page 59

  3. ^ Mann, S. E. (1948), “cube”, in An Historical Albanian–English Dictionary, London: Longmans, Green & Co., page 51

Borrowed from Latin cubus, from Ancient Greek κύβος (kúbos).

cube m (plural cubes)

  1. cube (all senses)
  2. third-grader

cube (plural cubes)

  1. cubic

cube

  1. inflection of cuber:
    1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
    2. second-person singular imperative

cube f

  1. feminine plural of cubo

cube

  1. vocative singular of cubus

cube

  1. inflection of cubar:
    1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
    2. third-person singular imperative