dyad

English

Etymology

From Ancient Greek δυάς (duás), δυάδ- (duád-) from δύο (dúo, “two”), from Proto-Indo-European *duwó, *duwéh₃ (*dwóh₁). The mathematics sense was coined by American scientist Josiah Willard Gibbs in 1884 in the second half of his book Elements of Vector Analysis.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈdaɪ.æd/
• Rhymes: -aɪæd
• Homophone: diad

Noun

dyad (plural dyads)

1. A set of two elements treated as one; a pair.

   Synonyms: couple, duad; see also Thesaurus:duo

   • 1908, W. D. Ross, Metaphysics Book I, translation of original by Aristotle:

     […] positing a dyad and constructing the infinite out of great and small, instead of treating the infinite as one, is peculiar to him; […]

   • 2019 January 29, Tom Bissell, “An Anti-Facebook Manifesto”, in New York Times‎^[1]:

     McNamee describes their grip on the company as “the most centralized decision-making structure I have ever encountered in a large company.” Their power dyad is possible only because Facebook’s “core platform,” as McNamee puts it, is relatively simple: It “consists of a product and a monetization scheme.”

2. (sociology) Two persons in an ongoing relationship; dyadic relationship.
   • 2003, Debra Lieberman, John Tooby, Leda Cosmides, The evolution of human incest avoidance mechanisms […] ‎^[2], page 20:

     For each individual in a specific dyad (i.e., mother-offspring, offspring-father, sibling-sibling), […]

3. (sociology) The relationship or interaction itself in reference to a couple.
4. (music) Any set of two different pitch classes.
5. (chemistry) An element, atom, or radical having a valence of or combining power of two.
6. (biology) A chromosome structure, usually X- or V-shaped, consisting of two condensed sister chromatids joined by a centromere.
7. (biology) A secondary unit of organisation consisting of an aggregate of monads.
8. (mathematics) A tensor of order two and rank one.

Coordinate terms

• (group) monad, duad/dyad, triad, tetrad, pentad, hexad, hebdomad/heptad, ogdoad/octad, ennead/nonad, decad/decade, hendecad, dodecad/duodecade, chiliad

Derived terms

• dyadic
• dyadwise
• dyadically
• dyadism
• pseudodyad

Translations

set of two different elements

• Bulgarian: двойка (bg) f (dvojka), чифт (bg) m (čift)
• Finnish: pari (fi)
• French: duo (fr) m
• Malay: bendua, diad
• Polish: diada (pl), para (pl)
• Portuguese: díade (pt) f
• Russian: диада (ru) (diada), пара (ru) (para), двойка (ru) (dvojka)

(music) any set of two different pitch classes

• Finnish: dyadi
• Japanese: 二和音 (ni-waon)
• Portuguese: díade (pt) f

pair of things standing in particular relation

• Bulgarian: чифт (bg) m (čift)
• Finnish: pari (fi), kaksikko (fi)

(chemistry) element, atom, etc., having a valence of two

• Bulgarian: двувалентен елемент m (dvuvalenten element)
• Finnish: kahdenarvoinen (adjective)

See also

• interval
• trichord
• hexachord
• tetrachord

Anagrams

• Addy, D-Day, Dady, addy