dimension

plural dimensions

1. A single aspect of a given thing.

   This film can be enjoyed on many dimensions - the script is great, the acting is realistic, and the special effects will simply take you aback.

   Synonyms: aspect

2. A measure of spatial extent in a particular direction, such as height, width or breadth, or depth.

   However, tubes of the same dimensions also look like solid cylinders, because their ovals are automatically treated as the top or bottom faces of solids.

   1985 November 19, Erik Sandberg-Diment, “PERSONAL COMPUTERS; DESIGNING IS MADE EASY BY AUTOCAD”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 21 Apr 2017

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   I can tell you that in your universe you move freely in three dimensions that you call space. […] After that it gets a bit complicated, and there's all sort of stuff going on in dimensions thirteen to twenty-two that you really wouldn't want to know about.

   1992, Douglas Adams, chapter 17, in Mostly Harmless (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), page 150

   We live our lives in three dimensions for our threescore and ten allotted years. Yet every branch of contemporary science, from statistics to cosmology, alludes to processes that operate on scales outside of human experience: the millisecond and the nanometer, the eon and the light-year.

   2012 January 28, Robert L. Dorit, “Rereading Darwin”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 1, archived from the original on 14 Nov 2012, page 23

   Synonyms: magnitude, proportion, size, scope

3. A construct whereby objects or individuals can be distinguished.
4. geometryThe number of independent coordinates needed to specify uniquely the location of a point in a space; also, any of such independent coordinates.
5. linear algebraThe number of elements of any basis of a vector space.
6. natural sciencesOne of the physical properties that are regarded as fundamental measures of a physical quantity, such as mass, length and time.

   The dimension of velocity is length divided by time.

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   On this last point Lenin is inconsistent, for he himself confidently answers various questions of physics: for example, he says that it is reactionary nonsense to claim that there can be more than three dimensions, and all forms of indeterminism are likewise nonsensical.

   1978 [1976], Leszek Kołakowski, translated by P[aul] S[teven] Falla, Main Currents of Marxism, volume II: The Golden Age, Oxford: Clarendon Press, translation of Główne nurty marksizmu: rozwój (in Polish), →ISBN, →OCLC, page 454

7. computingAny of the independent ranges of indices in a multidimensional array.
8. fantasyA universe or plane of existence.

   a machine that lets you travel to a parallel dimension.

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   "If a man should wish to be in some other place, it is entirely possible for him to imagine himself in that place and, diving back through the negative dimension, to emerge out of it in that place with instantaneous rapidity. To imagine oneself———"

   1938 July, L. Ron Hubbard, “The Dangerous Dimension”, in Astounding Science-Fiction, volume XXI, number 5, Street & Smith, →OCLC, page 105

   DR. PAUL MANHEIM: I have been on the other side. I have touched another dimension. Part of me is still there. LAURA MANHEIM: Help him. DR. CRUSHER: Try to stay calm Dr. Manheim. I don't think it's going to help you're struggling against it. DR. PAUL MANHEIM: My mind is floating between two places. It is difficult to know which is which. There is no way to explain it.

   1988 May 2, Rod Loomis, Michelle Phillips, Gates McFadden, We'll Always Have Paris (Star Trek: The Next Generation), Paramount Domestic Television, →OCLC

   He was experimenting with matter transportation through the nth dimension.

   2016, A.K. Brown, Jumpstart (Champagne Universe Series: Book 1), page 2

present singular third person dimensions · participle present dimensioning · participle past dimensioned · past dimensioned

1. transitiveTo mark, cut or shape something to specified dimensions.

   The first sixty argam form the basis for my own sexagesimal use, in the accounting of my business and in the dimensioning of buildings.

   2014 November 24, Michael Thomas De Vlieger, “Multiplication Tables of Various Bases”, in The Number Base, archived from the original on 06 Feb 2023, page 43

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   Nameless and formless the Spirit within shines forth, unconditioned and everlasting. What name is befitting the soul? How shall Infinite Effulgence be manifested? Too great a light blinds the senses. Too great a truth is too exhilarating for the student. The boundless, infinite Sentience, incomprehensibly dimensioned in Being and Intelligence, rests Unseen and Unthinkable in the shore of His Own omnipresent and superomnipresent consciousness.

   1911, Walter Winston Kenilworth, Thoughts on Things Psychics, page 51

   The mechanical drawing artist almost automatically lays down a triangle in order to draw a line in the desired place. Data entry for AutoCAD, by contrast, requires you to think in terms of coordinate positions rather than in the customary patterns of dimensioning.

   1985 November 19, Erik Sandberg-Diment, “PERSONAL COMPUTERS; DESIGNING IS MADE EASY BY AUTOCAD”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 21 Apr 2017

   Some people muse over real estate listings in the Sunday paper, looking at floor plans for apartments they could never afford, looking at an idea of what their life might be like with a properly dimensioned foyer.

   2008 February 21, Alexander Olch, “For the Moment | Dreams Foretold”, in The New York Times Magazine, archived from the original on 26 Nov 2022

   “The shape seems simple,” Bruce Leep said. “But very precise dimensioning is required. It was difficult to figure out how all of these angles come together.”

   2010 August 11, Jim Robbins, “Portable Housing, Made in Montana”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 17 Jun 2022

2. transitivecomputingTo specify the size of (an array or similar data structure); to allocate.

   Dimension an array to hold only as much data as you intend to put into it.

   2002, James D. Foxall, Wendy Haro-Chun, SAMS Teach Yourself C# in 24 Hours, page 268