Editing Parallelepiped (section)

== Etymology ==

The term ''parallelepiped'' stems from [[Ancient Greek]] {{wikt-lang|grc|παραλληλεπίπεδον}} (''parallēlepípedon'', "body with parallel plane surfaces"), from ''parallēl'' ("parallel") + ''epípedon'' ("plane surface"), from ''epí-'' ("on") + ''pedon'' ("ground"). Thus the faces of a parallelepiped are planar, with opposite faces being parallel.<ref name=oed>{{cite encyclopedia
 |title=parallelepiped
 |encyclopedia=Oxford English Dictionary
 |year=1933
 |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.99996/page/n741
}}</ref><ref>{{LSJ|parallhlepi/pedon|ref}}.</ref>

In English, the term ''parallelipipedon'' is attested in a 1570 translation of [[Euclid's Elements]] by [[Henry Billingsley]]. The spelling ''parallelepipedum'' is used in the 1644 edition of [[Pierre Hérigone]]'s ''Cursus mathematicus''. In 1663, the present-day ''parallelepiped'' is attested in [[Walter Charleton|Walter Charleton's]]  ''Chorea gigantum''.{{r|oed}}

[[Charles Hutton|Charles Hutton's]] Dictionary (1795) shows ''parallelopiped'' and ''parallelopipedon'', showing the influence of the combining form ''parallelo-'', as if the second element were ''pipedon'' rather than ''epipedon''. [[Noah Webster]] (1806) includes the spelling ''parallelopiped''.  The 1989 edition of the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' describes ''parallelopiped'' (and ''parallelipiped'') explicitly as incorrect forms, but these are listed without comment in the 2004 edition, and only pronunciations with the emphasis on the fifth syllable ''pi'' ({{IPA|/paɪ/}}) are given.