spheroid
1
7.3
- noun
- /ˈsfɪrɔɪd/
- Specialized
:
esferoide
- Unlike a sphere, whose size you can specify with one number—its radius—an oblate spheroid requires two numbers: its polar radius and its equatorial radius.
- an oblate spheroid
- a prolate spheroid
- a flattened spheroid
It's round, or spherical, or blade spheroid, or however you want to describe it.
- It's round, or spherical, or blade spheroid, or however you want to describe it.
- So we are a pear shaped oblate spheroid.
Examples
-
We talked earlier about the Earth that we live on is an oblate spheroid indeed.
-
There is, it's an oblate spheroid because rotation has sort of flattened it.
-
It's called an oblate spheroid, right?
-
"The Rivington man took from his knapsack a green-painted spheroid a little bigger than a baseball."
Fiction book (1992) -
So we're a pear shaped oblate spheroid and that's harder to model mathematically.
-
This variation in the strength of gravity, Newton reasoned, should distend Earth into an oblate spheroid: pudgy at the equator, flattened at the poles.
Academic text (1996) -
The rotation causes them to distort into flattened spheroids (for Saturn, this oblateness is noticeable in photographs).
Academic text (1999) -
The Earth is an oblate spheroid, which means it is slightly flattened at the poles.
-
In geometry class, we learned that a perfect spheroid can be formed by rotating a circle about an axis.
-
The scientist explained that a balloon filled with air takes the shape of a spheroid when it is inflated.
Synonyms
A solid made by turning an oval around its middle line, like the Earth
Compounds
- Specialized
A joint where a round bone end fits in a cup, letting movement in all directions
How Spherical
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
Spheroid comes from the Greek sphaira meaning 'ball' and the ending -oid meaning 'like', so a spheroid is literally 'ball-like' — a solid almost like a sphere, which is why the word is used in geometry.