Meaning & use
Venn
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Meanings
adjectivebefore a nounmathematics
Used before a noun to describe a diagram that uses overlapping circles to show what groups share and what is unique to each.
Grammar: Almost always written before a noun, and usually with a capital letter: a Venn diagram.
Patterns
- Venn diagram
The teacher drew a Venn diagram to compare the two stories.
In a Venn diagram, the area where the circles overlap shows what the two sets have in common.
proper nounproper
The surname of John Venn, the British mathematician who invented the overlapping-circle diagram.
Grammar: Used as a name; in everyday English it appears mainly inside the phrase Venn diagram.
The diagram is named after John Venn, who wrote about it in the 1880s.
Few people know anything about Venn except his famous circles.
Common combinations
- Venn diagram
- We made a Venn diagram to sort the animals into groups.
- draw a Venn diagram
- Please draw a Venn diagram showing the shared features.
- overlapping circles in a Venn diagram
- The overlapping circles in a Venn diagram show the shared items.
- Venn diagram of two sets
- A Venn diagram of two sets has two circles that cross in the middle.
Synonyms and how they differ
- set diagram
- A more general term for any picture showing sets; Venn diagram is the usual name when the picture uses overlapping circles.
Word family
- Venn diagram noun
- The full everyday name of the diagram itself.
Commonly confused: Venn or Venn diagram?
Venn vs Venn diagram
The single word Venn is only the name; the object people mean is almost always the two-word phrase Venn diagram.
Practice
Which sentence uses Venn correctly?
Choose one answer.
Venn is used before the noun diagram, so 'a Venn diagram' fits. The other options treat Venn as a verb or a standalone object, which is not standard English.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “Venn”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.