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Dome

1. A building; a house; an edifice; used chiefly in poetry. Approach the dome, the social banquet share. (Pope)

2. A cupola formed on a large scale.

The Italians apply the term il duomo to the principal church of a city, and the germans call every cathedral church Dom; and it is supposed that the word in its present english sense has crept into use from the circumstance of such buildings being frequently surmounted by a cupola.

3. Any erection resembling the dome or cupola of a building; as the upper part of a furnace, the vertical steam chamber on the top of a boiler, etc.

4. (Science: chemistry) a prism formed by planes parallel to a lateral axis which meet above in a horizontal edge, like the roof of a house; also, one of the planes of such a form.

If the plane is parallel to the longer diagonal (macrodiagonal) of the prism, it is called a macrodome; if parallel to the shorter (brachydiagonal), it is a brachydome; if parallel to the inclined diagonal in a monoclinic crystal, it is called a clinodome; if parallel to the orthodiagonal axis, an orthodome.

Origin: f. Dome, It. Duomo, fr. L. Domus a house, domus Dei or Domini, house of the lord, house of God; akin to gr. House, to build, and E. Timber. See timber.