symmetry

From Latin symmetria, from Ancient Greek συμμετρία (summetría), from σύμμετρος (súmmetros, “symmetrical”), from σύν (sún, “with”) + μέτρον (métron, “measure”). By surface analysis, sym- +‎ -metry.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈsɪmɪtɹi/, enPR: sĭʹmĭtrĭ^[1]

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symmetry (countable and uncountable, plural symmetries)

1. Exact correspondence on either side of a dividing line, plane, center or axis.
2. The satisfying arrangement of a balanced distribution of the elements of a whole.
   • 1921, Ben Travers, chapter 1, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC:

     She was like a Beardsley Salome, he had said. And indeed she had the narrow eyes and the high cheekbone of that creature, and as nearly the sinuosity as is compatible with human symmetry.

• asymmetric
• asymmetry
• symmetric
• symmetrophobia