asymmetry
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English
Etymology
From Ancient Greek ἀσυμμετρία (asummetría), from ἀσύμμετρος (asúmmetros) + -ία (-ía), from ἀ- (a-) + σύμμετρος (súmmetros); equivalent to a- + symmetry.
Pronunciation
Noun
asymmetry (countable and uncountable, plural asymmetries)
- Absence of symmetry or proportion between the parts of a thing, or a distinction that produces such a lack of symmetry.
- 1993, Joseph B. Hellige, Hemispheric Asymmetry: What's Right and What's Left, →ISBN, page 114:
- Despite the generally symmetrical appearance of the two hemispheres, however, a number of biological asymmetries have been documented during the last hundred years.
- 1994, Roger Ferlet, Alfred Vidal-Madjar, Circumstellar Dust Disks and Planet Formation, →ISBN:
- If the planet is on moderate eccentric orbit (0.01), it creates large-scale azimuthal assymetries which evolve at the orbital velocity of the corresponding resonance, for example at half time the planet velocity for the stronger resonance, the 2:1 one.
- 1997, American Bar Foundation, ABF Working Paper - Issue 9304; Issue 9426, page 75:
- In this sense, the concern of political economy with assymetries of information among political actors is well-placed.
- 2014, Amal Amireh, Lisa Suhair Majaj, Going Global: The Transnational Reception of Third World Women Writers, →ISBN:
- Transnational feminists argue that feminists need to understand the material conditions that shape women's lives in diverse locations, particularly in a world "structured by transnational economic links and cultural assymetries" (Grewal and Kaplan, 3).
- The lack of a common measure between two objects or quantities; incommensurability.
Translations
lack of symmetry or proportion
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incommensurability — see incommensurability
References
- ^ John A. Simpson and Edmund S. C. Weiner, editors (1989), “asymmetry”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, →ISBN.
- ^ Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “asymmetry”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.