orbifold means A topological space in which every small enough neighborhood is homeomorphic to a quotient of real space by the action of a finite group. It carries an Arena rating of 1437, earned across 5 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, orbifold ranks #362 of 17,124 for Most Sublime Words, #957 of 17,149 for Most Exacting Words, #3,985 of 17,142 for Most Ingenious Words, #4,123 of 17,126 for Most Satisfying to Say.
orbifold is pronounced /ˈɔɹ.bɪˌfoʊld/.
Why “orbifold” is a great word
A topological space in which every point has a neighborhood described as Euclidean space modulo the symmetrical action of a finite group. Blended from 'orbit' and 'manifold', the term was coined by mathematician William Thurston in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Unlike a manifold, which is locally smooth and featureless like an endless sheet, or an orbispace, which permits infinite complexities, an orbifold is a disciplined hybrid: the conical peak of a meticulously folded crane, the crystalline vertex where perfect facets meet, the mathematical ghost of a rotation that has pressed a circle into an arc—a space that remembers the elegant violence of the symmetry that created it.
Etymology
Blend of orbit + manifold. Named by William Thurston.
noun
- A topological space in which every small enough neighborhood is homeomorphic to a quotient of real space by the action of a finite group.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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