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🔷 Hexagon structure 🐝 Bee wax cells 🕳️ To make holes
honeycomb

honeycomb

6 3.5
A pattern of small six-sided cells used to make light, strong materials
  • noun
  • /ˈhʌniˌkoʊm/
translation icon : estructura en panal
  • In the apiary, we examined the honeycomb where the bees stored their honey and larvae.
  • honeycomb structure

It's an acid free honeycomb card, so acid free means that it won't give off any harmful acid into the object itself, which is very important.

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Examples

  • Over millennia, each ecological niche in the honeycomb of the Himalayas has developed its own carefully balanced cultural and religious traditions.

    Academic text (2005)

  • First, the honeycomb-shaped rotors of the concentrators draw processed exhaust air into the units.

    Academic text (2000)

  • You see here, the honeycomb effect?

    Fiction book (1999)

  • What do you think of those honeycomb panels?

    Ford v Ferrari (2019)

  • I gave her the last painting my mother ever made of the light inside a honeycomb.

    Fiction book (1993)

  • So imagine that you had just a regular hexagonal honeycomb like this.

  • A spokesman said the company is also working on a design that uses a honeycomb structure as an alternative to nanograss.

    Academic text (2006)

  • The core itself consists of a honeycomb with 1,100 open passages per square inch.

    Academic text (2006)

  • I have a sunroom that still has the yellowing honeycomb blinds of the previous owner.

    Blog text (22)

  • An aluminum honeycomb at the bottom of the capsule protects the sphere during landing.

    Blog text (32)

Synonyms

tessellation
vshoneycomb
1 8.1

A pattern of shapes that fit together without gaps, like tiles or honeycombs

is a specific hexagonal cell pattern built naturally by bees

Compounds

honeycomb tripe
  • Specialized
9.9

The edible lining of a cow's second stomach with a honeycomb texture used as food

Surface Forms

honeycomb singular
honeycombs plural

Morphology

honeycomb = honey + comb (semi-transparent) = honey + comb

The components are clear, but this sense generalises the physical bees' structure to any similar hexagonal pattern or framework, which requires metaphorical extension.

Etymology

The word honeycomb also names any pattern that looks like the bees' comb, a close set of six-sided 'cells'. So designers and artists call a repeating hexagon pattern a 'honeycomb' because it looks like the bees' strong, light structure.