polytope
pol·y·tope/ˈpɑliˌtoʊp/noun
polytope is spelled P-O-L-Y-T-O-P-E: 8 letters and 3 syllables (pol·y·tope). It appears about once in every 28 million words in written English, the 159,707th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, polytope means “A geometric shape (of any number of dimensions) which is fully enclosed and has flat sides, making it a member of the generalized class of shapes…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of polytope is polytopes.
How many letters and syllables are in polytope?
| Letters | 8: P-O-L-Y-T-O-P-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3: pol·y·tope |
| In writing | about once in every 28 million words; the 159,707th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How common is polytope?
Polytope appears about once in every 28 million words in written English, the 159,707th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce polytope?
- UK /ˈpɒlɪˌtəʊp/
- UK /ˈpɒliːˌtəʊp/
- US /ˈpɑliˌtoʊp/
Polytope has 3 syllables, split pol·y·tope in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Flame,_not_lame-polytope.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of polytope
- polytopes plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does polytope mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A geometric shape (of any number of dimensions) which is fully enclosed and has flat sides, making it a member of the generalized class of shapes which includes the two-dimensional polygon and three-dimensional polyhedron; (formally) a finite region of n-dimensional space bounded by hyperplanes.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Polytope in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense geometric shape:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does polytope come from?
Learned borrowing from German Polytop, originally coined by German mathematician Reinhold Hoppe in 1882, and first used in English by British mathematician Alicia Boole Stott in her 1910 paper Geometrical deduction of semiregular from regular polytopes and space fillings. By surface analysis, poly- (“many”) + -tope (“surface”), from Ancient Greek τόπος (tópos, “region; area”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).