Symmetrise

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To alter or arrange something so that it becomes balanced and equal on both sides
2. The act of creating or imposing symmetry on an object or design by adjusting its parts
3. Transforming a form or pattern to have identical or mirror-image halves

Etymology: "Symmetrise" is simply "symmetry" with the verbal ending "-ise" attached, the same ending found in words like "organise" and "modernise". The noun "symmetry" comes from Greek "symmetria", meaning "commensurability" or "proportion", built from "sun" ("together") and "metron" ("measure"). The sense of the Greek root is therefore about things measured to fit together, and that idea of matching proportions carries into the verb. The verb means to make something evenly balanced or to bring two sides into matching correspondence. Because it is a plain combination of an existing noun and a suffix, its history is essentially that of its base word, and the work of the ending is to turn a quality into an action: to give symmetry to something is to symmetrise it.

Synonyms: symmetrize