Tessellate
adj, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 To cover with tiles or stones, as a mosaic; to tile. transitive
- 2 tile with tesserae wordnet
- 3 to cover a two-dimensional shape, such that multiple copies of itself placed edge to edge cover an area leaving no space between the shapes. intransitive
"Regular hexagons tessellate."
- 4 fit together exactly, of identical shapes wordnet
- 5 To completely fill (an area) when multiple copies of one or more two-dimensional shapes are placed edge to edge. transitive
"It is possible to tessellate the plane with equilateral triangles and regular hexagons."
- 1 tessellated
Example
More examples"It is possible to tessellate the plane with equilateral triangles and regular hexagons."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *kʷetwóres Proto-Hellenic *kʷétwores Ancient Greek τέσσαρες (téssares)bor. Latin tessera Proto-Indo-European *-lós Proto-Italic *-elos Latin -lus Latin tessella Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-tós Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂tos Proto-Italic *-ātos Latin -ātus Latin tessellātuslbor. English tessellate Learned borrowing from Latin tessellātus, from tessella, diminutive of tessera; from Ancient Greek τέσσαρες (téssares), from Proto-Indo-European *kʷetwóres.
Related phrases
More for "tessellate"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.