Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- transitive verb To form into a mosaic pattern, as by using small squares of stone or glass.
from The Century Dictionary.
- In zoology, same as
tessellated , 3. - Having the appearance of a mosaic pavement; made up of elements of such forms and arrangement as to produce the appearance of a mosaic pavement, as in the case of spicules of sponges and spines of echinoids which have their distal ends enlarged, flattened, of polygonal form, and closely arranged.
- noun Something having a tessellated appearance.
- To form by inlaying differently colored materials, as a pavement; hence, to variegate.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Tessellated.
- transitive verb To form into squares or checkers; to lay with checkered work.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb transitive To cover with tiles or stones, as a
mosaic . - verb intransitive, geometry Of a
two-dimensional shape, such that multiple copies of itself placed edge to edge cover an area leaving no space between the shapes. - verb transitive, geometry To completely fill (an area) when multiple copies of one or more two-dimensional shapes are placed edge to edge.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb tile with tesserae
- verb fit together exactly, of identical shapes
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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Yes, seeing the word tessellate made me happy, too.
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The followup is that subway will do this for you, but charge you for "extra cheese." can Subway workers understand "tessellate"? christ, they can't understand "yes, i'd like olives" means more than 5 on a footlong.
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His latest effort is The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing, in a hefty tome, where Dawkins attempts to present a concise view of science to the world in many short passages from many different scientists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries that tessellate together to form a beautiful volume of writing.
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I must find an occasion to use it, or at least find an occasion to tessellate.
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A double order of cantaloupes on the half shell, a derby hat full of oatmeal, a rosary of sausages, and about as many flapjacks as would be required to tessellate the floor of a fair-sized reception hall is nothing at all for him.
One Third Off Tony Sarg 1910
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As the myriad shells that tessellate old ocean's pavements, as the vast army of innumerable clouds which cea-elessly shift their coloring and their forms at the presto of wizard-winds: as the leaves of the forest that bud and wane in the flush of summer or the howl of wintry storms, so we differ one from another.
Macaria; or, Altars of Sacrifice Augusta Jane 1864
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Yellow lily-buds and leathery lily-pads tessellate its surface, and the white water-lilies -- pale, proud Ladies of Shalott -- bare their virgin breasts to the sun in the seclusion of its distant reaches.
Literary and Social Essays George William Curtis 1858
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The bright mosaic, that with storied beauty, the floor of nature's temple tessellate.
Pearls of Thought Maturin Murray Ballou 1857
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These features include fine-grained modification of textures, more efficient data sharing between shader programs, and the ability to re-use shapes that the GPU has already tessellated without having to tessellate them again.
Ars Technica Peter Bright 2011
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With the best will in the world, a brand-spanking new system will struggle to tessellate completely with 40 year old systems that it is taking over. '
This is Money | Home 2010
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