3-D

 Dictionary entry overview: What does 3-D mean? 

• 3-D (noun)
  The noun 3-D has 2 senses:

1. a movie with images having three dimensional form or appearance

2. having a three-dimensional form or appearance

  Familiarity information: 3-D used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• 3-D (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A movie with images having three dimensional form or appearance

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

3-D; 3D; three-D

Hypernyms ("3-D" is a kind of...):

film; flick; motion-picture show; motion picture; movie; moving-picture show; moving picture; pic; picture; picture show (a form of entertainment that enacts a story by sound and a sequence of images giving the illusion of continuous movement)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Having a three-dimensional form or appearance

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

3-D; 3D; three-D

Context example:

aren't dreams always in 3-D?

Hypernyms ("3-D" is a kind of...):

appearance (a mental representation)

 Context examples 

The team found a similar mechanism at work in other cell types as they moved through a 3-D matrix.

(New Mechanism of Cell Movement Revealed, NIH)

A portable 3-D scanning device developed by Sri Lankan and US researchers can quickly measure limb enlargement of patients with the disfiguring condition elephantiasis that resulted from lymphatic filariasis infection.

(New portable device to gauge severity of elephantiasis, SciDev.Net)

Using a 3-D printer, the researchers constructed a handheld component that could attach to a smartphone.

(Smartphone microscope detects nanoparticles and viruses, NIH)

Using data from almost one billion stars, the researchers created a 3-D map of interstellar dust reddening across three quarters of the visible sky.

(All we are is dust in the interstellar wind, NSF)

Scientists released the first comprehensive 3-D atlas of gene expression in the developing human brain.

(An Atlas of the Developing Human Brain, NIH)

An advanced form of 3-Dimensional Conformal Radiation Therapy that involves the use of varying intensities of small radiation beams to produce dosage distributions that are more precise than those possible with 3-D CRT.

(Intensity-modulated radiation therapy, NCI Thesaurus)

A procedure that uses infrared light waves to give three-dimensional (3-D) pictures of structures inside tissues and organs.

(OCT, NCI Dictionary)

Before radiation, a 3-dimensional (3-D) image of the tumor is taken.

(Helical tomotherapy, NCI Dictionary)

Altered migration of single-stranded DNA molecules in non-denaturing gels based upon 3-D conformation.

(Conformation Dependent Mutation Detection, NCI Thesaurus/OSP)

The 3-D organization of histones and other proteins on chromosomal DNA in the nucleus and allow for its form and function during cellular growth and division.

(Chromosome Structure, NCI Thesaurus)