tessellation

noun

tes·​sel·​la·​tion ˌte-sə-ˈlā-shən How to pronounce tessellation (audio)
1
a
: mosaic
b
: a covering of an infinite geometric plane without gaps or overlaps by congruent plane figures of one type or a few types
2
: an act of tessellating : the state of being tessellated

Example Sentences

Recent Examples on the Web Closerie Falbala was made to energise, and stepping inside feels like being within an ornament, a tender space, Logological Cabinet, was meant to be an intense experience, painted in his L'Hourloupe style from floor to ceiling in swirling tessellations. Grace Banks, Forbes, 22 Mar. 2023 The path of the International Space Station, as mapped over a tessellation of Narukawa's world map. Nathaniel Scharping, Discover Magazine, 29 Nov. 2022 The true impact of roads seems to be the gradual tessellation of once-cohesive landscapes. Nathaniel Scharping, Discover Magazine, 19 Dec. 2016 Both exercise graphics and compute shaders, but one focuses on hardware tessellation and the other on the OpenGL application programming interface (API). Brian Westover, PCMAG, 8 July 2022 Keller’s conjecture, a tessellation problem about the way certain shapes tile in certain spaces, has been solved for all but seven-dimensional space. Caroline Delbert, Popular Mechanics, 31 Aug. 2020 In the cases Wiles studied, the tiling might be something along the lines of M.C. Escher’s famous tessellations of a disk with fish or angels and devils that get smaller near the boundary. Quanta Magazine, 6 Apr. 2020 As one journey — the classification of all convex polygon tessellations — ends, another is just beginning. Quanta Magazine, 11 July 2017 An example is the tessellation of a strange, multipronged shape called the Taylor-Socolar tile, discovered by the Australian amateur mathematician Joan Taylor in the 1990s, and analyzed in detail with Joshua Socolar of Duke University in 2010. Quanta Magazine, 14 May 2018 See More

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'tessellation.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

First Known Use

1660, in the meaning defined at sense 1a

Time Traveler
The first known use of tessellation was in 1660

Dictionary Entries Near tessellation

Cite this Entry

“Tessellation.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tessellation. Accessed 1 Jun. 2023.

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!