English Explanatory Dictionary

dyad

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. A set of two elements treated as one; a pair.
  2. Two persons in an ongoing relationship; a dyadic relationship.
  3. The relationship or interaction itself in reference to a couple.
  4. Any set of two different pitch classes.
  5. An element, atom, or radical having a valence of or combining power of two.
  6. A chromosome structure, usually X- or V-shaped, consisting of two condensed sister chromatids joined by a centromere.
  7. A secondary unit of organisation consisting of an aggregate of monads.
  8. A tensor of order two and rank one.

Pronunciation

/ˈdaɪ.æd/ LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-dyad.wav

Word forms

dyad dyads

Etymology

From Ancient Greek δυάς (duás), δυάδ- (duád-) from δύο (dúo, “two”), from Proto-Indo-European *duwó, *duwéh₃ (*dwóh₁). The mathematics sense was coined by American scientist Josiah Willard Gibbs in 1884 in the second half of his book Elements of Vector Analysis.

Synonyms

couple duad brace couplet doublet duet duo duplet dyad pair twain twosome twinsome

Related words

interval trichord hexachord tetrachord

Derived words

dyadic dyadwise dyadically dyadism pseudodyad

Translations

Bulgarian: двойка Bulgarian: чифт Finnish: pari Finnish: kaksikko French: duo Malay: bendua Malay: diad Polish: diada Polish: para Portuguese: díade Russian: диада Russian: пара Russian: двойка
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.
Back to search All on D Russian dictionary Dahl dictionary