What does cuboid mean?
A cuboid is a three-dimensional geometric shape with six rectangular faces, twelve edges, and eight vertices, where every face meets its neighbours at right angles. Unlike a cube, whose six faces are all identical squares, a cuboid may have faces of differing dimensions, so any cube is technically a special case of a cuboid but not vice versa. The word derives from the Greek 'kybos' (cube) combined with '-oid' meaning 'resembling', so it literally means 'cube-like'. Beyond mathematics, the term appears in anatomy, where the cuboid is one of the tarsal bones of the foot, named for its roughly cube-shaped form. The word can also function adjectivally to describe objects with this boxy shape. Cuboids dominate the designed world — bricks, shipping cartons, books, and rooms are all typically cuboidal — making the term both practically useful and intuitively graspable for describing rectilinear solid forms.
A solid geometric figure with six rectangular faces meeting at right angles.
"Calculate the volume of the cuboid by multiplying its length, width, and height."
Shaped like or resembling a cube; having approximately the form of a cube.
"She packed the cuboid containers neatly into the crate."
The adjectival sense is less common than the noun but well established in descriptive writing.
Standard plural, used when referring to multiple such solids or, in anatomy, the paired cuboid bones of both feet.
"The warehouse stored thousands of cardboard cuboids awaiting shipment."
There's a cube hiding inside your vocabulary: 'cuboid' literally means 'cube-like', and you have one of them as a bone in your foot right now.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of cuboid
The word 'cuboid' comes from the Greek 'kybos' meaning 'cube', joined with the suffix '-oid' from Greek 'eidos' (form), giving the literal sense 'cube-like'. It entered English scientific vocabulary around the early 19th century, when systematic terminology for solid geometry was being standardised. The same root 'kybos' gives rise to 'cube' and 'cubic', while the '-oid' suffix produced a whole family of resemblance terms such as 'spheroid' and 'ellipsoid'. Its anatomical use for a foot bone followed naturally once anatomists adopted geometric descriptors for skeletal forms.
How cuboid is actually used
As an adjective, 'cuboid' describes anything shaped roughly like a cube ('a cuboid container'). In everyday British English especially, 'cuboid' often refers loosely to any box-shaped object whose faces are rectangles; in American usage, 'rectangular prism' is more common in school geometry contexts.
Easily confused with cuboid
A cube has six identical square faces, while a cuboid's faces are rectangles that need not be square.