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# spherical

adjective (spherical; more spherical)

«spherical» in the English dictionary: everyday — its meanings, how the lessons use it, and examples, each with its tree on Mova.

## Everyday

1. Spherical means shaped like a ball, round in every direction, like a sphere. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/spherical/#m1)
2. In maths, a spherical object has every point on its surface the same distance from the centre. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/spherical/#m2)

### In the lessons

In maths lessons on 3D shapes, a sphere is round like a ball; things like oranges, marbles and planets are roughly spherical. In science, raindrops, bubbles and the Earth are described as nearly spherical. It is a more formal, exact word than «round».

### Examples

- A football is spherical. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/spherical/#x1)
- The Earth is almost spherical but a little flat at the poles. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/spherical/#x2)
- Bubbles are spherical because of how water pulls on itself. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/spherical/#x3)
- Marbles are small spherical glass balls. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/spherical/#x4)
- A circle is flat, but a ball is spherical. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/spherical/#x5)
- The bead was spherical with a hole through the middle. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/spherical/#x6)
- Name three spherical things in the classroom. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/spherical/#x7)

### Note

Pronounced «SFERR-ik-ul»; spelt with «ph». «Circular» is for flat shapes (a circle), «spherical» for solid shapes (a sphere) — a common trap. In maths a sphere has 1 curved face, no edges and no vertices.

## On Mova

- [Trees and pragmatics of «spherical» in the school dictionary](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/spherical/): every meaning and example parsed by Mova, with its dependency tree and frames.
- [«spherical» in the school dictionary](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/dictionaries/school/w/spherical.html) on Mova free.