PYRAMID • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Pyramid

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/pˈɪrəmɪd/ Listen

noun

Pyramid n.

1.

A solid body standing on a triangular, square, or polygonal base, and terminating in a point at the top; especially, a structure or edifice of this shape.

2.

(Geom.) A solid figure contained by a plane rectilineal figure as base and several triangles which have a common vertex and whose bases are sides of the base.

3.

pl. (Billiards) The game of pool in which the balls are placed in the form of a triangle at spot. (Eng.)

4.

(Finance) A fraudulent investment scheme in which the manager promises high profits, but instead of investing the money in a genuine profit-making activity, uses the money from later investors to pay the profits to earlier investors; also called pyramid scheme or pyramid operation. This process inevitably collapses when insufficient new investors are available, leaving the later investors with total or near-total losses of their investments. The managers usually blame government regulations or interference for the collapse of the scheme, rather than admit fraud.

Altitude of a pyramid (Geom.), the perpendicular distance from the vertex to the plane of the base.

Axis of a pyramid (Geom.), a straight line drawn from the vertex to the center of the base.

Earth pyramid. (Geol.) See Earth pillars, under Earth.

Right pyramid (Geom.) a pyramid whose axis is perpendicular to the base.

verb

Pyramid v. t. (Speculation) To use, or to deal in, in a pyramiding transaction. See Pyramid, v. i.

Pyramid v. i. (Speculation) To enlarge one's holding or interest in a series of operations on a continued rise or decline by using the profits to buy or sell additional amounts on a margin, as where one buys on a 10% margin 100 shares of stock quoted at 100, holds it till it rises to 105, and then uses the paper profit to buy 50 shares more, etc. The series of operations constitutes a pyramid. A similar process of reinvesting gains or winnings (as of a gamble), but not involving operation on margin, is called a parlay.

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Etymology of 'Pyramid'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Pyramid" Quotes from Famous Books

... and black. To the east another. South and west a jagged chain of hills. In the foreground ricefields and cocoa palms. Everywhere intense green, untoned by grey; and in the midst of it this strange erection. Seen from below and from a distance it looks like a pyramid that has been pressed flat. In fact, it is a series of terraces built round a low hill. Six of them are rectangular; then come three that are circular; and on the highest of these is a solid dome, crowned by a cube ...

— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson

... not in Spain?) the post horn to Denmark, the turtle to Tonga. The Geneva cross belongs to Switzerland but is not really a watermark, as it is impressed in the paper after the stamps are printed. The pyramid and sun and the star and crescent both belong to Egypt. The lion comes from Norway, the sun from the Argentine Republic, the wreath of oak leaves from Hanover, the lotus flower ...

— What Philately Teaches • John N. Luff

... forms, but far more interesting, are the monuments of stone. One shape I know represents five of the Buddhist elements: a cube supporting a sphere which upholds a pyramid on which rests a shallow square cup with four crescent edges and tilted corners, and in the cup a pyriform body poised with the point upwards. These successively typify Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, Ether, the five substances wherefrom the body is shapen, and into which it is resolved by death; ...

— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn

... Erin, or who that can see, Thro' the waste of her annals, that epoch sublime— Like a pyramid raised in the desert—where he And his glory stand out to ...

— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... here! tut, tut, tut!" in a tone of mingled disgust and pity, which to Maggie's imagination was equivalent to the strongest expression of public opinion. Mr. Rappit, the hair-dresser, with his well-anointed coronal locks tending wavily upward, like the simulated pyramid of flame on a monumental urn, seemed to her at that moment the most formidable of her contemporaries, into whose street at St. Ogg's she would carefully refrain from entering through ...

— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

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