Noun
(plural polytopes)
- (geometry) A finite region of n-dimensional space bounded by hyperplanes; the geometrical entity represented by the general term of the infinite sequence "point, line, polygon, polyhedron...".
Hyponyms
- (geometrical figure): polygon (2d figure), polyhedron (3d figure), hypercube (generalised cube), simplex (generalised tetrahedron), tesseract (4d cube)
Origin
From German Polytop, equivalent to poly- (“many”) + -tope (“surface”). Coined by Hoppe in 1882 and introduced to English by Alicia Boole Stott.