three-dimensional

American  

[three-di-men-shuh-nl, -dahy-] / ˈθri dɪˈmɛn ʃə nl, -daɪ- /

adjective

1. having, or seeming to have, the dimension of depth as well as width and height.

2. (especially in a literary work) fully developed.

   The story came alive chiefly because the characters were vividly three-dimensional.

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three-dimensional British  

adjective

1. of, having, or relating to three dimensions

   three-dimensional space

2. (of a film, transparency, etc) simulating the effect of depth by presenting slightly different views of a scene to each eye

3. having volume

4. lifelike or real

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Other Word Forms

• threedimensionality noun

Etymology

Origin of three-dimensional

First recorded in 1890–95

Explanation

Things that have depth and can be rotated in space are three-dimensional. Everything around you that you can touch or move around—your sneaker, your dog, the rug on the floor—is three-dimensional. Dimensionality can be a tricky quality to understand, but it helps to think of a line connecting two points as one-dimensional and a flat plane or shape, like a triangle drawn on paper, as two-dimensional. When you add depth to a shape, you get a three-dimensional object: a triangle becomes a pyramid, for example. When a story or other work of art is so well-made and detailed that it's believable, you can also describe it as three-dimensional.

Example Sentences

Puppets create a liminal space between the quotidian and the fantastic, while inhabiting the same, actual three-dimensional space as the rest of us.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 13, 2026

As a flat, rigid representation of a fluctuating and notional three-dimensional space, it wasn’t perfect.

From Salon • Apr. 13, 2026

Alphabet announced the availability of Project Genie in January, an AI-based tool that can give users the ability to create fully rendered three-dimensional worlds.

From Barron's • Mar. 28, 2026

Wealthy homeowners are spending big to install and maintain aquariums that look like living, three-dimensional art pieces.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 14, 2026

Wilkins’s pet project at King’s was solving the three-dimensional structure of DNA.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee