Word of the Day

: December 15, 2010

quincunx

noun KWIN-kunks

What It Means

: an arrangement of five things in a square or rectangle with one at each corner and one in the middle

quincunx in Context

The tables were arranged in a quincunx, with the hosting family at the center table and guests at the four corners.

"As we walked along the geometric beds -- many of them planted in an ancient Roman quincunx pattern -- I made notes on the beautiful crops I had never grown." -- From an article by Anne Raver in the New York Times, June 30, 2010

Did You Know?

As our second example sentence suggests, today's word has its origins in ancient Rome. To the Romans, a "quincunx" was a coin whose name comes from the Latin roots "quinque," meaning "five," and "uncia," meaning "one twelfth." The weight of the coin equaled five twelfths of a libra, a unit of weight similar to our pound. The ancients used a pattern of five dots arranged like the spots on a die as a symbol for the coin, and English speakers applied the word to arrangements similar to that distinctive five-dot mark.