Other forms: pyramids
A pyramid is a solid shape with a flat base and triangular sides that lean inwards and meet at a single point on top. The stone ones at Giza standing in the sand, a paper one folded in a maths lesson, oranges stacked to a point on a market stall.
The Egyptian tombs are the dominant picture, and the Pyramids with a capital P means those and nothing else. Any arrangement that is wide at the bottom and narrow at the top gets the name: the food pyramid, a population pyramid, a pyramid of cheerleaders. A pyramid scheme is a fraud in which each new layer of people pays the layer above and only the top ever gets rich. In geometry the base can be any straight-sided figure — triangle, square, pentagon — while a cone is the one with a round base, and pyramidal is the adjective if you ever need it.
1nounpyramidA solid shape with a flat base whose sides are triangles meeting at a point.
“The children made a pyramid out of card and sticky tape.”
2nounhugeOne of the huge stone tombs built by the ancient Egyptians.
“They flew to Cairo mainly to see the pyramids.”
3nounanythingAnything arranged so that it is wide at the bottom and narrow at the top.
“The greengrocer built a pyramid of apples in the window.”
4noundishonestA dishonest business scheme in which each new member pays the members above them.
“The investment turned out to be a pyramid, and the money was long gone.”
pyramid is a solid shape.
Pyramid came through French and Latin from Ancient Greek πῡραμίς, and where the Greeks got it is still unsettled. One old guess ties it to πῡρός, 'wheat', and ἀμάω, 'reap', as though the shape were a heap of grain; another traces it to Egyptian pr-m-ws, 'height of a pyramid'. Either way the Greeks were putting a name to buildings already two thousand years old when they first saw them.
egy
pr-m-ws — height of a pyramid
Ancient Greek
πῡραμίς
Latin
pyramis
Old French
piramide
French
pyramide
English, today
pyramid
Built from
From French pyramide, from Old French piramide, from Latin pyramis, from Ancient Greek πῡραμίς, possibly from πῡρός (“wheat”) + ἀμάω (“reap”) or from egy pr-m-ws (“height of a pyramid”), from prj (“(one that) comes forth”) + m (“from”) + ws (“height”). Schenkel and K. Lang proposed hypothetical cop ⲡⲓⲣⲁⲙ or ⲫⲣⲁⲙ derived from egy mr via metathesis as a source of πῡραμίς while Schenkel also suggested it being the source of Arabic هَرَم although the latter is considered far-fetched by Takacs.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Colors, Shapes & Numbers, Light & Shadow, Shapes & Lines