(crystallography) One of seven categories (cubic, hexagonal, tetragonal, trigonal, orthorhombic, monoclinic, and triclinic) into which a crystal may be classified according to the shape of the unit cell of its Bravais lattice, or according to the dominant symmetry elements of its crystal class.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms. Copyright © 2003, 1994, 1989, 1984, 1978, 1976, 1974 by McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.