Noun: pyramid
| Singular | pyramid |
| Plural | pyramids |
Sample Sentences
-
[T]he owners of Doddington Hall, in Lincolnshire, have brought the folly into the 21st century, by building a 30ft pyramid in the grounds of the Elizabethan manor. [2014 September 7, “Doddington's garden pyramid is a folly good show: The owners of a Lincolnshire stately home have brought the folly into the 21st century, by building a 30ft pyramid [print edition: Great pyramid of Lincolnshire, 6 September 2014, p. G2]”, in The Daily Telegraph, London:]
-
The company was organized as a pyramid, with a CEO in charge of four directors, each heading up a department.
-
They sit looking at the empty plate that had held a pyramid of sesame cakes. They have eaten them all. [1960, John Updike, 'Rabbit, Run', page 63:]
-
A telephone pyramid is now being formed to fill this need. Once a representative group of community people decide a crisis exists […] a list of people will be called, who in turn will call a small number of others from a list already in their possession. This process continues untill as much of the community as possible has been notified. The numbers will be kept in strict confidence, with no one other than the organizers having the entire list. Individual callers will only have a few names and numbers. [1973 August 18, “Gay [drawing of a pyramid (sense 1)]”, in Gay Community News, volume 1, number 9, page 1:]
-
From there he headed down the leagues, but his love of the game trumped any pride about where he 'ought' to be playing as he racked up more than 1,000 games across the full length of the English pyramid. [(Can we date this quote?), Flora Snelson, “Cureton, 50, scores in 10th tier to 'complete football'”, in BBC:]
-
Build your pyramid with all cards face down, except the cards in the bottom row.
-
[…] with a cross-line banner, a set of two-column pyramids beneath it in the middle, and on each side of these exactly the same thing,—something between a headline and a story—"$50,000 Reward for—" etc. [1924, Helen Ogden Mahin, The Development and Significance of the Newspaper Headline:]
Nouns inflected like pyramid
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
From French pyramide, from Old French piramide, from Latin pȳramis, pȳramidis, from Ancient Greek πῡραμίς (pūramís), possibly from πῡρός (pūrós, “wheat”) + ἀμάω (amáō, “reap”) or from Egyptian pr-m-ws (“height of a pyramid”), from pr (“(one that) comes forth”) + m (“from”) + ws (“height”). Schenkel and K. Lang proposed hypothetical Coptic *ⲡⲓⲣⲁⲙ (*piram) or *ⲫⲣⲁⲙ (*phram) derived from Egyptian mr via metathesis as a source of πῡραμίς (pūramís) while Schenkel also suggested it being the source of Arabic هَرَم (haram) although the latter is considered far-fetched by Takacs. See: French Nouns '
pyramide', Latin Nouns '
pyramis'.