Number & MeasureGreek → English
Mathematics
/ˌmæθəˈmætɪks/noun
The study of number, quantity, structure and space.
The Greek roots
μάθημα
máthēma
lesson, thing learned
Literally: “the things learned”
Follow a root:μάθημα1 word
The story of the word
μάθημα is anything you learn, from μανθάνω, to learn, so the word originally claimed the whole of teachable knowledge. The narrowing to number happened inside the Pythagorean school, where the mathēmatikoi were the inner circle allowed the full doctrine while the akousmatikoi, the listeners, got the rules alone. The same root survives undisguised in polymath, a person who has learned many things.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → Old French → English
- First recorded
- 1580s
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
polymathmathematicalchrestomathy
In a sentence
She teaches mathematics to fourteen-year-olds and swears it is the best job in the school.