quaternion
English · Français · Thesaurus
AI In plain words
Writing a short explanation…
Written by a house AI from the entry below, in your language. The entry itself is the source.
quaternion
- /kwəˈtɜːni.ən/ UK
- /kwɑˈtɜɹniɑn/ US
- /kwə-/ US
- /-ən/ US
Where it comes from
From Middle English quaterniǒun, from Late Latin quaterniō, from quaternī (“four each”) + -iō, from quater (“four times”). Doublet of kern. The mathematics sense was coined by Irish mathematician and astronomer William Rowan Hamilton in 1843.
noun quaternions
- A group or set of four people or things. Then wer the dayes of unlevended breed, and when he had caught hym, he put him in preson, and delyvered hym to iiij. quaternions off soudiers to be kepte, entendynge after ester to brynge hym forth to the people.
- A word of four syllables. In his general deportment he was pompous and important, affecting a species of florid elocution, which often became ridiculous from his misarranging the triads and quaternions with which he loaded his sentences.
- A type of four-dimensional hypercomplex number consisting of a real part and three imaginary parts (real multiples of distinct, independent square roots of −1 denoted by i, j and k); commonly used in vector mathematics and as an alternative to matrix algebra in calculating the rotation of three-dimensional objects. The right-hand side of the quaternion equation requires scalar multiplication and quaternion addition.
Thesaurus
Translations
Every language
noun a four-dimensional hypercomplex number
| Español | cuaternión |
|---|---|
| 日本語 | 四元数 shigensū |
| हिन्दी | चतुष्टयी catuṣṭayī |
| Português | quaternião |
| Français | quaternion |
| Deutsch | Quaternion |
| Italiano | quaternione |
| Ελληνικά | τετραδόνιο tetradónio, τετράνιο tetránio |
| Русский | кватернион kvaternion |
Talk about this word "quaternion." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/quaternion. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. quaternion. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/quaternion "quaternion." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/quaternion.Cite this
@misc{quaternion_2026,
title = {quaternion},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/quaternion},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
