Tetris
name, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 The act of clearing four lines at once (the maximum possible) in Tetris. broadly
"For some it's staying low on the play field, steadily advancing through the levels, for others its ^([sic]) trying to clear the board entirely or scoring an unprecedented number of tetrises."
- 1 A puzzle video game in which falling tetrominoes must be manipulated to form complete lines, which are then cleared from the grid.
"There is one nice moment in the music, but it's not the moment identified by the owner of the system, and one idiot goes so far as to gush, "This is better than Tetris!""
- 2 An endeavor involving rearranging things of different shape into a physical space. figuratively
"Then I looked at the furniture. It was all a bit unimaginative, so I rearranged everything at a jaunty angle. When I returned to the cellar I was still playing Tetris with the cooker in my head."
Example
More examples"Packing a moving truck is like playing Tetris."
Etymology
From Russian Те́трис (Tétris), coined by the creator of the game, Alexey Pajitnov, from the Russian numerical prefix тетра- (tetra-, “tetra-”) (as all of the game's pieces contain four segments) and те́ннис (ténnis, “tennis”), his favourite sport.
Related phrases
More for "tetris"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.