Mind & EmotionGreek → English
Eccentric
/ɪkˈsɛntrɪk/adjective
Odd or unconventional in behaviour, or in geometry, not sharing a center.
The Greek roots
ἐκ
ek
out of
κέντρον
kéntron
sharp point, center
Literally: “off the center”
The story of the word
κέντρον is a sharp point before it is a center: an ox-goad, a wasp's sting, then the fixed leg of a pair of compasses, which is where the geometry comes from. Medieval astronomy needed eccentric for an orbit whose circle did not have the earth at its middle, one of the patches that kept the Ptolemaic system predicting well. The sense of an odd person shows up around 1600, and by the time Victorians were calling a rich uncle an eccentric, the geometry had been forgotten.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Medieval Latin → English
- First recorded
- 15th century
Same family
centerepicenterconcentriccentrifugal
In a sentence
He is not eccentric, he is simply rich enough not to be corrected.
The orbit is highly eccentric, so the comet spends most of a century out of sight.