| Library / English Dictionary |
PYRAMID
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A massive monument with a square base and four triangular sides; begun by Cheops around 2700 BC as royal tombs in ancient Egypt
Synonyms:
Great Pyramid; Pyramid; Pyramids of Egypt
Classified under:
Nouns denoting man-made objects
Instance hypernyms:
memorial; monument (a structure erected to commemorate persons or events)
Holonyms ("Pyramid" is a member of...):
Seven Wonders of the Ancient World; Seven Wonders of the World (impressive monuments created in the ancient world that were regarded with awe)
Derivation:
pyramid (arrange or build up as if on the base of a pyramid)
pyramidal; pyramidical (resembling a pyramid)
Sense 2
Meaning:
(stock market) a series of transactions in which the speculator increases his holdings by using the rising market value of those holdings as margin for further purchases
Classified under:
Nouns denoting possession and transfer of possession
Hypernyms ("pyramid" is a kind of...):
speculation; venture (an investment that is very risky but could yield great profits)
Domain category:
securities market; stock exchange; stock market (an exchange where security trading is conducted by professional stockbrokers)
Sense 3
Meaning:
A polyhedron having a polygonal base and triangular sides with a common vertex
Classified under:
Nouns denoting two and three dimensional shapes
Hypernyms ("pyramid" is a kind of...):
polyhedron (a solid figure bounded by plane polygons or faces)
Derivation:
pyramid (arrange or build up as if on the base of a pyramid)
pyramidal; pyramidical (resembling a pyramid)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Increase rapidly and progressively step by step on a broad base
Classified under:
Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.
Hypernyms (to "pyramid" is one way to...):
increase (become bigger or greater in amount)
Sentence frame:
Something ----s
Sense 2
Meaning:
Arrange or build up as if on the base of a pyramid
Classified under:
Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging
Hypernyms (to "pyramid" is one way to...):
arrange; set up (put into a proper or systematic order)
Sentence frame:
Somebody ----s something
Derivation:
Pyramid (a massive monument with a square base and four triangular sides; begun by Cheops around 2700 BC as royal tombs in ancient Egypt)
pyramid (a polyhedron having a polygonal base and triangular sides with a common vertex)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Use or deal in (as of stock or commercial transaction) in a pyramid deal
Classified under:
Verbs of buying, selling, owning
Hypernyms (to "pyramid" is one way to...):
deal; sell; trade (do business; offer for sale as for one's livelihood)
Domain category:
crime; criminal offence; criminal offense; law-breaking ((criminal law) an act punishable by law; usually considered an evil act)
Sentence frame:
Somebody ----s something
Sense 4
Meaning:
Enlarge one's holdings on an exchange on a continued rise by using paper profits as margin to buy additional amounts
Classified under:
Verbs of buying, selling, owning
Hypernyms (to "pyramid" is one way to...):
benefit; gain; profit (derive a benefit from)
Domain category:
investing; investment (the act of investing; laying out money or capital in an enterprise with the expectation of profit)
Sentence frame:
Somebody ----s
Context examples:
I desired you would let me know, by a letter, when party and faction were extinguished; judges learned and upright; pleaders honest and modest, with some tincture of common sense, and Smithfield blazing with pyramids of law books; the young nobility’s education entirely changed; the physicians banished; the female Yahoos abounding in virtue, honour, truth, and good sense; courts and levees of great ministers thoroughly weeded and swept; wit, merit, and learning rewarded; all disgracers of the press in prose and verse condemned to eat nothing but their own cotton, and quench their thirst with their own ink.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
On the palm were three little pyramids of black, doughy clay.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Every Friday five crates of oranges and lemons arrived from a fruiterer in New York—every Monday these same oranges and lemons left his back door in a pyramid of pulpless halves.
(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)
