CONE

I. noun Etymology: Middle French or Latin; Middle French, from Latin conus, from Greek kōnos Date: 1545 1. a solid generated by rotating a right triangle about one of its legs, a solid bounded by a circular or other closed plane base and the surface formed by line segments joining every point of the boundary of the base to a common vertex, a surface traced by a moving straight line passing through a fixed vertex, 2. a mass of ovule-bearing or pollen-bearing scales or bracts in most conifers or in cycads that are arranged usually on a somewhat elongated axis, any of several flower or fruit clusters suggesting a ~, something that resembles a ~ in shape: as, any of the conical photosensitive receptor cells of the vertebrate retina that function in color vision, any of a family (Conidae) of tropical marine gastropod mollusks that inject their prey with a potent toxin, the apex of a volcano, a crisp usually ~-shaped wafer for holding ice cream, II. transitive verb (~d; coning) Date: 1845 to make ~-shaped, to bevel like the slanting surface of a ~