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Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

dyad en · NOUN

Pronunciation

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 Josiah Willard Gibbs in 1884 in the second half of his book Elements of Vector Analysis.

Meanings

  1. A set of two elements treated as one; a pair.
    • McNamee describes their grip on the company as “the most centralized decision-making structure I have ever encountered in a large company.” Their power dyad is possible only because Facebook’s “core platform,” as McNamee puts it, is relatively simple: It “consists of a product and a monetization scheme.” 2019 January 29, Tom Bissell, “An Anti-Facebook Manifesto”, in New York Times:
    • […] positing a dyad and constructing the infinite out of great and small, instead of treating the infinite as one, is peculiar to him; […] 1908, W. D. Ross, Metaphysics Book I, translation of original by Aristotle:
  2. Two persons in an ongoing relationship; a dyadic relationship.
    • The southern relationship was a slaveholder-physician dyad, with the slave left outside, unconsulted, uninformed, and with no recourse if she or he was unsatisfied, injured, or killed—a medical nonentity. 2008, Harriet A. Washington, “Southern Discomfort”, in Medical Apartheid, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, page 64:
    • For each individual in a specific dyad (i.e., mother-offspring, offspring-father, sibling-sibling), […] 2003, Debra Lieberman, John Tooby, Leda Cosmides, The evolution of human incest avoidance mechanisms […] , page 20:
  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.

Forms

SpellingFeaturesLabelsSource
dyads Number=Plur lexicographic

Deriveds

pseudodyad · dyadically · dyadwise · dyadic · dyadism

Relateds

interval · tetrachord · trichord · hexachord

Synonyms

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

Translations (20)

bg двувалентен елемент ((chemistry) element, atom, etc., having a valence of two) · fr duo (set of two different elements) · bg чифт (set of two different elements) · bg чифт (pair of things standing in particular relation) · ja 二和音 ((music) any set of two different pitch classes) · pt díade ((music) any set of two different pitch classes) · fi kaksikko (pair of things standing in particular relation) · bg двойка (set of two different elements) · fi kahdenarvoinen ((chemistry) element, atom, etc., having a valence of two) · fi pari (pair of things standing in particular relation) · fi pari (set of two different elements) · ru двойка (set of two different elements) · pt díade (set of two different elements) · ms diad (set of two different elements) · pl para (set of two different elements) · fi dyadi ((music) any set of two different pitch classes) · ms bendua (set of two different elements) · ru пара (set of two different elements) · pl diada (set of two different elements) · ru диада (set of two different elements)