A quincunx is an arrangement of five objects in a square or rectangle, with one at each corner and one in the middle. Its origin traces back to an ancient Roman coin with a five-dot pattern.
Quincunx, beş nesnenin kare veya dikdörtgen şeklinde, her köşede bir ve ortada bir olacak şekilde düzenlenmesidir. Kökeni, beş nokta desenine sahip antik Roma'da bir paraya dayanmaktadır.
| Word | quincunx |
|---|---|
| Date | May 16, 2016 |
| Type | noun |
| Syllables | KWIN-kunks |
| Etymology | In ancient Rome, a quincunx was a coin with a weight equal to five twelfths of a libra, a unit of weight similar to our pound. The coin's name comes from the Latin roots quinque, meaning "five," and uncia, meaning "one twelfth." The ancients used a pattern of five dots arranged like the pips on a die as a symbol for the coin, and English speakers applied the word to arrangements similar to that distinctive five-dot mark. |
| Examples | The sculptures in the square were arranged in a quincunx with the outer ones marking the perimeter and the middle one serving as the centerpiece. "The towers of Angkor Wat—shaped in a quincunx, five points in a cross—were named after Mount Meru, the home of the gods believed in Indian myth to lie at the center of the world." — William Dalrymple, The New York Review of Books, 21 May 2015 |
| Definition | : an arrangement of five things in a square or rectangle with one at each corner and one in the middle |
Tags: wordoftheday::noun
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