CUBE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does cube mean? 

• CUBE (noun)
  The noun CUBE has 5 senses:

1. a hexahedron with six equal squares as faces

2. a three-dimensional shape with six square or rectangular sides

3. the product of three equal terms

4. any of several tropical American woody plants of the genus Lonchocarpus whose roots are used locally as a fish poison and commercially as a source of rotenone

5. a block in the (approximate) shape of a cube

  Familiarity information: CUBE used as a noun is common.

• CUBE (verb)
  The verb CUBE has 2 senses:

1. raise to the third power

2. cut into cubes

  Familiarity information: CUBE used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CUBE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A hexahedron with six equal squares as faces

Classified under:

Nouns denoting two and three dimensional shapes

Synonyms:

cube; regular hexahedron

Hypernyms ("cube" is a kind of...):

ideal solid; Platonic body; Platonic solid; regular convex polyhedron; regular convex solid; regular polyhedron (any one of five solids whose faces are congruent regular polygons and whose polyhedral angles are all congruent)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "cube"):

tesseract (the four-dimensional analogue of a cube)

quadrate (a cubelike object)

Derivation:

cube (cut into cubes)

cubical; cuboidal (shaped like a cube)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A three-dimensional shape with six square or rectangular sides

Classified under:

Nouns denoting two and three dimensional shapes

Synonyms:

block; cube

Hypernyms ("cube" is a kind of...):

solid (a three-dimensional shape)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "cube"):

goldbrick (a brick-shaped block that looks like gold but is not)

Derivation:

cube (cut into cubes)

cubic (involving the cube and no higher power of a quantity or variable)

cubical; cuboidal (shaped like a cube)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The product of three equal terms

Classified under:

Nouns denoting quantities and units of measure

Synonyms:

cube; third power

Hypernyms ("cube" is a kind of...):

number (a concept of quantity involving zero and units)

Derivation:

cube (raise to the third power)

cubic (involving the cube and no higher power of a quantity or variable)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Any of several tropical American woody plants of the genus Lonchocarpus whose roots are used locally as a fish poison and commercially as a source of rotenone

Classified under:

Nouns denoting plants

Hypernyms ("cube" is a kind of...):

subshrub; suffrutex (low-growing woody shrub or perennial with woody base)

Holonyms ("cube" is a member of...):

genus Lonchocarpus; Lonchocarpus (genus of chiefly tropical American shrubs and trees having pinnate leaves and red or white flowers)

Sense 5

Meaning:

A block in the (approximate) shape of a cube

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

cube; square block

Hypernyms ("cube" is a kind of...):

block (a solid piece of something (usually having flat rectangular sides))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "cube"):

dice; die (a small cube with 1 to 6 spots on the six faces; used in gambling to generate random numbers)

ice cube (a small cube of artificial ice; used for cooling drinks)

Derivation:

cubical (shaped like a cube)

• CUBE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they cube    ... he / she / it cubes   
Past simple: cubed   
Past participle: cubed   
-ing form: cubing   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Raise to the third power

Classified under:

Verbs of thinking, judging, analyzing, doubting

Hypernyms (to "cube" is one way to...):

multiply (combine by multiplication)

Domain category:

arithmetic (the branch of pure mathematics dealing with the theory of numerical calculations)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

cube (the product of three equal terms)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Cut into cubes

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Synonyms:

cube; dice

Context example:

cube the cheese

Hypernyms (to "cube" is one way to...):

cut (separate with or as if with an instrument)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Sentence example:

The chefs cube the vegetables

Derivation:

cube (a three-dimensional shape with six square or rectangular sides)

cube (a hexahedron with six equal squares as faces)

 Context examples 

Because of the Doppler Effect, this means that different slices of the data cube show images of gas moving at different speeds towards or away from the observer.

(Ageing Star Blows Off Smoky Bubble, ESO)

Someone chokes on an ice cube or gets stung by a bee.

(First Aid, NIH)

CubeSats, named for the roughly 4-inch-cubed dimensions of their basic building elements, are stacked with smartphone-like electronics and tiny scientific instruments.

(Six-decade-old space mystery solved with shoebox-sized satellite called a CubeSat, National Science Foundation)

Typically, Mars’ crust has been considered at least as dense as Earth’s oceanic crust, which is about 2,900 kilograms per meter cubed (about 181 pounds per cubic foot).

(New Gravity Map Suggests Mars Has a Porous Crust, NASA)

A SI unit of volume or capacity equal to the volume of a cube with edges one meter in length.

(Cubic Meter, NCI Thesaurus)

They have likewise discovered two lesser stars, or satellites, which revolve about Mars; whereof the innermost is distant from the centre of the primary planet exactly three of his diameters, and the outermost, five; the former revolves in the space of ten hours, and the latter in twenty-one and a half; so that the squares of their periodical times are very near in the same proportion with the cubes of their distance from the centre of Mars; which evidently shows them to be governed by the same law of gravitation that influences the other heavenly bodies.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

He had seen too much of life, and his mind was too matured, to be wholly content with fractions, cube root, parsing, and analysis; and there were times when their conversation turned on other themes—the last poetry he had read, the latest poet she had studied.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

The new ALMA data are not just a single image; ALMA produces a three-dimensional dataset (a data cube) with each slice being observed at a slightly different wavelength.

(Ageing Star Blows Off Smoky Bubble, ESO)

The researchers mapped the density of the Martian crust, estimating the average density is 2,582 kilograms per meter cubed (about 161 pounds per cubic foot).

(New Gravity Map Suggests Mars Has a Porous Crust, NASA)