before a vowel sometimes cub-, combining form from Gr. κύβος die, CUBE: as in † cubo-cube [Gr. κυβόκυβος], a name for the sixth power of a quantity, or the cube multiplied by itself; so † cubo-cubic; † cubo-cubo-cube, the ninth power; cubo-cuneiform (Anat.), relating to the cuboid and cuneiform bones = CUNEOCUBOID; also in Solid Geom. and Crystallography, denoting a solid that combines the forms of a cube and another solid, as cubo-octahedron (cuboctahedron), a solid of fourteen faces formed by cutting off the corners of a cube, so as to add eight triangular faces corresponding to those of an octahedron, or by similarly modifying an octahedron in the direction of a cube; sometimes restricted to the middle or critical case in which the square faces are reduced to smaller squares; so cubo-octahedral a., cubo-dodecahedron, -al.
1696. in Phillips, Cubocubic. Ibid. (1706), Cubo-Cube … the sixth power of any Number.
1727–51. Chambers, Cycl., Cubo-cubus, the term whereby Diophantus, Vieta, &c. distinguish the sixth power.
1796. Hutton, Math. Dict., Cubo-cube, the 6th. power. Cubo-cubo-cube, the 9th. power.
1805–17. R. Jameson, Char. Min. (ed. 3), 203. A crystal is said to be cubo-dodecahedral, cubo-octahedral, cubo-tetrahedral, when it contains a combination of the two forms indicated by these terms.
1868. Dana, Min., Introd. 22. (Crystallography) Some of the simpler isometric forms … a cube … combination of cube and dodecahedron … cubo-octahedron.
1876. Quain’s Anat. (ed. 8), I. 178. Cubo-cuneiform Articulation.
