cube

A cubicle, especially one of those found in offices.

Adjective

  1. Used in the names of units of area formed by multiplying a unit of length by itself twice.
    • 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...

Origin

From Old French cube, from Latin cubus, from Ancient Greek κύβος (kúbos). Displaced Old English tæfel ("cube, die, game with dice or tables").

Related

cubic cubical cuboid cubism cubist line segment square tesseract

Derived

4-cube angiocube bath cube bouillon cube broth cube cubane cube candle cube farm cubefree cubeful cube juice cubeland cubeless cubelet cubelike cube map cube mapping cube master cubemate cube out cube powder cuber cube root cube rule

Noun geometry, mathematics

  1. 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.
    • A: One cube or two? B: Oh, no sugar for me, thanks.
  3. The third power of a number, value, term or expression.
    • The cube of 2 is 8.
    • The cube of 0.5 is 0.125.

    Antonyms: cube root

  4. 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. 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...
  7. An extremely socially conventional or conservative person, moreso than even a square.

Forms

cubes

Synonyms

regular hexahedron block brick die square block third power

Hypernyms

hexahedron cuboid

Noun Entry 3

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

Origin

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”).

Forms

cubes

Verb

  1. 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.
    • 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...
  2. To form into the shape of a cube.
  3. To cut into cubes.
    • Cube the ham right after adding the curry to the rice.
  4. To use a Rubik's cube.
    • He likes to cube now and then.

Forms

cubes cubing cubed

Synonyms

to cut into cubes