spherical

spherical — adjective

1. shaped like a ball or globe — completely round in three dimensions, like a socce

1.adjectiveB2
Definition

shaped like a ball or globe — completely round in three dimensions, like a soccer ball, a marble, or the Earth.

Example

Felipe carefully polished each spherical marble until it shone.

position before noun: spherical + marble

The storage tank behind the factory is spherical and holds over 50,000 litres.

after linking verb: be + spherical

Common collocations
  • spherical object
  • spherical shape
  • spherical form
  • spherical surface
  • perfectly spherical
  • roughly spherical
  • almost spherical
  • nearly spherical
Synonyms
  • round

    more general; can refer to 2D circles or 3D balls, while spherical is always 3D

  • globular

    more formal or scientific; describes something shaped like a globe

  • ball-shaped

    more informal, everyday language; directly descriptive

Antonyms
  • flat

    having a level surface with no curves or bumps

  • angular

    having sharp corners or edges rather than a smooth curve

  • irregular

    not even or regular in shape

Grammar Patterns

spherical + noun

be/spherical

Usage Note

Use spherical for three-dimensional objects. For flat, two-dimensional objects like coins or plates, use round instead. Often occurs in scientific or technical contexts but is also used in everyday descriptions.

Common Mistakes

A coin is spherical.
A coin is round.
Coins are flat (2D circles), not ball-shaped (3D).
She drew a spherical shape on the paper.
She drew a round shape on the paper.
A drawing on paper is 2D, so it can only be round, not spherical.

Word family

  • sphere
    nounB2
  • spherically
    adverbC1
  • sphericity
    nounC2

Synonym discussion

Sense: adjective/1

Spherical, round, globular, and ball-shaped all describe curved shapes, but they differ in dimension and formality. Spherical is the most precise term: it refers specifically to a three-dimensional object like a ball, globe, or sphere. Round is broader — it can describe both 2D circles (a round coin, a round table) and 3D objects (a round melon), which makes it useful in casual speech but less exact. Globular is a more formal synonym for spherical, often used in scientific writing (globular clusters in astronomy, globular proteins in biology). Ball-shaped is the most informal and everyday option, widely understood but rarely used in technical contexts. For example, a child might call a Christmas ornament ball-shaped, while an astronomer would say a planet is spherical.

spherical ↗round ↗globularball-shaped

Common collocations

Nouns

Adverbs

Phrases

  • spherical in shape

Etymology

GreekLatinFrenchEnglish

Spherical comes from the Latin word sphaericus ('ball-shaped'), which came from the Greek sphairikos, from sphaira meaning 'ball' or 'globe'. English borrowed the word through French in the 1500s.