parallelepiped

parallelepiped

, parallelopiped, parallelepipedon

a geometric solid whose six faces are parallelograms

Parallelepiped

 

a hexahedron whose opposite faces are parallel. A parallelepiped has eight vertices and 12 edges; its opposite faces are congruent parallelograms. A parallelepiped whose lateral edges are perpendicular to a base is called a right parallelepiped; its four lateral faces are rectangles. A rectangular parallelepiped is a right parallelepiped with a rectangular base; consequently, all six faces are rectangles. A parallelepiped whose faces are squares is called a cube. The volume of a parallelepiped is equal to the product of an altitude and the area of a base.

parallelepiped

[‚par·ə‚lel·ə′pī·pəd]

(mathematics)

A polyhedron all of whose faces are parallelograms.