prism

Other forms of prism

plural

prisms·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about prism

What does prism mean?

prism means "a polyhedron with two congruent and parallel faces (the bases) and whose lateral faces are parallelograms". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in prism?

prism has 2 syllables, though it cannot be divided in writing — the spelling has fewer vowels than the word has beats. In IPA it is /ˈpɹɪzəm/.

What is another word for prism?

Close synonyms include optical prism. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is prism a common word?

prism is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.