bilateral symmetry
- noun
- /ˌbaɪˈlætərəl ˈsɪmətri/
- Specialized
:
simetría bilateral
- Many animals exhibit bilateral symmetry, meaning their left and right sides are mirror images of each other.
Examples
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Right: A male dung beetle's protruding, hornlike appendages demonstrate the sort of bilateral symmetry found in many organisms.
Academic text (1993) -
Its bilateral symmetry is sometimes said to reflect the contributions of one's parents to the self, the right being identified with the father and the left with the mother (Idowu 1994:183, Epega 1971:16).
Academic text (2008) -
There might be bilateral symmetry on both the shirt's front and back.
Academic text (2007) -
Playing on the bilateral symmetry that is part of his tradition, the mirror doubles a carving and makes the spirit world accessible.
Academic text (1994) -
One of the most familiar plants with bilateral symmetry is the snapdragon (Antirrhinum majus).
Academic text (2002) -
Whorled flowers can abandon the radial symmetry of Arabidopsis for the bilateral symmetry of snapdragon.
Academic text (2006) -
Jolie-Gray wonders why there are seventeen pearls, not sixteen, not eighteen; the rays of the monstrance, after all, spread out in bilateral symmetry.
Fiction book (2000) -
Curiously, bilateral symmetry—and thus the developmental "trick" that makes it possible—seems to have evolved numerous times, independently.
Academic text (2002) -
As Wu describes it, the composition of an icon exhibits bilateral symmetry, and the image is presented from a frontal perspective so that it engages the viewer directly.
Academic text (1998) -
The inkblot's bilateral symmetry, remember, is suggestively organic, and it might be tempting to project upon it the brain's hemispheres or the butterfly's spots.
Academic text (2017)
Synonyms
1
7.9
A property of a system where left and right are swapped and it stays the same
Having the same shape on both sides of the middle line of a body or object
A shape or body with the same left and right sides like a butterfly
Antonyms
How Symmetrical
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is directly compositional: 'bilateral' specifies left–right matching and 'symmetry' denotes matching arrangement, so together they mean symmetry across a central vertical plane. This follows normal English compounding and is cross-linguistically transparent, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents can reliably infer the meaning.
Etymology
Bilateral symmetry comes from the simple idea of dividing a shape or animal down the middle so the two sides match like a mirror; bilateral means 'two sides' and symmetry means 'same on both sides'. That's why bilateral symmetry is used to say the 'left and right' parts are matching.