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Previous Thread Next Thread Print Thread Suffix "-esimal" #193883 11/08/2010 3:10 PM Joined: Jan 2002 Posts: 1,526 Virginia, USA TheFallibleFiend veteran TheFallibleFiend veteran Joined: Jan 2002 Posts: 1,526 Virginia, USA (Mostly from http://www.etymonline.com/) Finite comes from Latin for "boundary." "In-" as in "infinite" means "without," so "infinite" is "without boundary." "-tude" as in "infinitude" is "state" or "state of" so "infinitude" is "state of infinity" "-y" as in "infinity" means "quality or condition or state" (etymology 3 at http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-y) So "infinity" is "state of being infinite." Same for "-ness." Apparently, neither "-y" nor '-ness' is Latin. (Not that I care - just observing.) However, I'm not sure where "-esimal" comes in. "Infinitesimal" was coined (according to the refs and what I've heard) by Leibniz. Seems to mean something like "part of." So infinitesimal could mean "infinith part of" which seems to fit. Any ideas? Copy Link to Clipboard Share Post on Facebook Share Post on Twitter Re: Suffix "-esimal" TheFallibleFiend #193884 11/08/2010 3:53 PM Joined: Aug 2005 Posts: 3,290 R'lyeh zmjezhd Carpal Tunnel zmjezhd Carpal Tunnel Joined: Aug 2005 Posts: 3,290 R'lyeh Latin -esimus means the same as English -th, i.e., ordinal rank: e.g., centesimus '100th', millesimus '1000th'. Infnitesimal means something like 'the infinith (rank)'. There are examples in Classical Latin of -esimus being used with non-numbers: e.g., multesimus 'trifling', Ceci n'est pas un seing. Copy Link to Clipboard Share Post on Facebook Share Post on Twitter Re: Suffix "-esimal" TheFallibleFiend #193895 11/08/2010 8:40 PM Joined: Jan 2002 Posts: 1,526 Virginia, USA TheFallibleFiend veteran TheFallibleFiend veteran Joined: Jan 2002 Posts: 1,526 Virginia, USA Makes sense. Archimedes developed a method of computing areas under a curve by dividing the area into a bunch of rectangles. Of course this is only an approximation, depending on how you draw the rectangles, the actual area is slightly more or less than the sum of the rectangles. http://www.squarecirclez.com/blog/riemann-sums/4715 OTOH, if you take the width of each rectangle to be an very small, and then perform the sum, the error is arbitrarily small, approaching zero in the (infinitesimal) limit. Copy Link to Clipboard Share Post on Facebook Share Post on Twitter Re: Suffix "-esimal" TheFallibleFiend #193937 11/10/2010 2:30 PM Joined: Jan 2002 Posts: 1,526 Virginia, USA TheFallibleFiend veteran TheFallibleFiend veteran Joined: Jan 2002 Posts: 1,526 Virginia, USA So anyway the definition of integrate at http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=integrate is "to put together parts or elements and combine them into a whole." In the mathematical sense, it's clear that integration is a putting together of the elements (long thin rectangles) to determine the whole (sum) of the area under a curve. In the social sense, racial integration is also making a whole of the separated parts of society. Copy Link to Clipboard Share Post on Facebook Share Post on Twitter Moderated by  Jackie  Hop To General Topics ------  Information and announcements  Q&A about words  Wordplay and fun  Words and languages in schools  Miscellany  Weekly Themes  Looking for (writers, speakers,... (Old) Weekly themes. (have been... ------  Words from medicine  Beheading words  Meta-words  Words from classical mythology  Animal Safari  Words with unusual etymologies  Eponyms or words derived from p...  Loanwords from German  English as a global language Print Thread Switch to Threaded Mode Show Likes Link Copied to Clipboard View Profile Private Message Website Follow User Forum Posts Like Summary View Profile Private Message Website Follow User Forum Posts Like Summary View Profile Private Message Website Follow User Forum Posts Like Summary View Profile Private Message Website Follow User Forum Posts Like Summary

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