I have tried Googling this, and the only answer I got was a gem cut called Marquise, which I believe is the shape I am looking for, but its usage seems limited to gems.
It might also be called a cat’s eye shape, but that is somewhat casual and imprecise.
I don’t know if it’s commonly accepted, but I’d call it football shaped.
I’d go with lenticular, that is something shaped like a lens
Lenticular - lentil-shaped
The word lens comes from the lentil-like cross section. Like Anne Elk’s dinosaurs they are thin at one end, much thicker in the middle and thin at the other end.
Thank you for lenticular, a word I had not come across before (that I remember). That word does seem to be fairly specialized to refer to lenses and lentils, so I’m going to keep hoping that there is a more universal term.
Vesica piscis, which isn’t English but would be recognized as Latin in Christianity, other religions, and sacred geometry. It’s derived from a single circle and when iterated 6 times, forms the Seed of Life in sacred geometry. It’s everywhere in churches once you start looking.
Notice the relationship to the Ichthys.
Also: A form of mandorla.
Also: A vulva.
Lenticular to me means one of those 3D printed cards. That’s the only place I’ve ever heard that term. I’d never associate it with a shape.
Look, if you don’t shut up I shall shoot you.
My first instinct is to call it a quenelle, but that’s because I watch too many cooking competitions on TV and that’s what it makes me think of.
Often they make things into a “quenelle shape”. As noted in Wikipedia:
By extension, a quenelle may also be another food made into a similar shape, such as ice cream, sorbet, butter, or mashed potato quenelles.
I’m not sure that term is used outside of the culinary world, though.
In recent years, I’ve seen the word “lenticular” used to describe a certain type of high-altitude clouds that have, more than once, prompted calls to authorities to report UFO sightings, in areas that don’t usually see them.
I always called the shape described in the OP as a “pointy-ended oval.”
That’s just a theory - her theory.
Evil eye.
The ichthys arcs are flattened toward the fish’s tail, rather than being true circle arcs with constant curvature.
But yeah, I think vesica piscis (literally “fish bladder”) for the symmetrical shape formed by intersecting circle arcs is the closest thing to a standard term for this shape.
Given that the construction of the vesica piscis seems to assume that the two intersecting circles pass through each other’s centers, and the OP might have been seeking something a bit more general, I propose that we use the term “fish figure” (from the matsya or fish shape in Sanskrit geometry) to mean the symmetrical pointed oval formed by any two intersecting congruent circle arcs.
Wikipedia calls it a lens, though a geometric not an optical one.
Yeah, “lens” is probably a better choice than “fish figure” for a standard name, given its already wide use.
I learned the word “lenticular” from a lecture about the Smithfield St bridge in Pittsburgh, PA.
Yes, I can see that. And somehow “lenticular” sounds like a good word to use for a bridge, better than lens shaped.
“Lemon shaped.”
That’s absolutely the correct name for the 3-D version of the shape:
