Why are the tetrahedron, octahedron, dodecahedron, and icosahedron called what they are called? Do you see how this naming convention is connected with the convention used to name polygons? What should the cube be called to be consistent with the names for the other 4 Platonic solids?
The prefixes tetra-, octa-, dodeca-, and icosa- refer to the number of faces in the polyhedron. These prefixes are derived from Greek. For polygons, we use the Greek prefix associated with the number of edges with the root -gon meaning knee (so that polygons have 'many knees') and for the Platonic solids, we use the Greek prefix associated with the number of faces followed by the root -hedron meaning seat. A cube can also be called a hexahedron. For your naming convenience, here are the first 20 Greek numerical prefixes:
|
1 |
mono |
6 |
hexa |
11 |
hendeca |
16 |
hexakaideca |
|
2 |
di |
7 |
hepta |
12 |
dodeca |
17 |
heptakaideca |
|
3 |
tri |
8 |
octa |
13 |
triskaideca |
18 |
octakaideca |
|
4 |
tetra |
9 |
ennea |
14 |
tetrakaideca |
19 |
enneakaideca |
|
5 |
penta |
10 |
deca |
15 |
pentakaideca |
20 |
icosi |