quaternion

Other forms of quaternion

plural

quaternions·

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 quaternion

What does quaternion mean?

quaternion means "the cardinal number that is the sum of three and one".

How many syllables are in quaternion?

quaternion has 4 syllables: qua-ter-ni-on. The stress falls on "ter".

What is another word for quaternion?

Close synonyms include four, 4, IV, tetrad, quatern. 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 quaternion a common word?

quaternion is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.