geometry

Definitions

geo- (earth) + metr (measure) + -y (noun) = 'earth-measuring.' The name records its origin: Egyptian surveyors re-measured farmland after the Nile's floods erased the boundaries. Practical land-measuring grew into the abstract study of shapes and space.

Why It Means This

Few words wear their history so openly: geometry is literally 'measuring the earth.' The Greeks took the Egyptians' practical surveying and turned it into a deductive science of abstract shapes, but the name kept the original earthbound image of someone pacing out a field.

Common Collocations

• 1.Euclidean geometry欧几里得几何
• 2.geometry class几何课
• 3.geometry problem几何问题
• 4.complex geometry复杂的几何结构

Example Sentences

• 1.

  In geometry class we learned to calculate the area of a triangle.

• 2.

  The bridge's elegant geometry helps it carry enormous loads.

• 3.

  Euclidean geometry is still taught in most schools today.