Number & MeasureGreek → English
Nomogram
/ˈnɒməɡræm/noun
A graph of scaled lines on which a straight edge laid across two known values reads off a third.
The Greek roots
νόμος
nómos
law, rule
γράμμα
grámma
drawing, written mark
Literally: “law drawing”
The story of the word
Maurice d'Ocagne worked the method out in the 1880s and called the field nomography, the writing down of laws, meaning mathematical relations rather than statutes. Engineers carried pocketbooks of these charts until calculators killed them off. Medicine kept them: drug dosing, body surface area and cardiovascular risk scores still travel as nomograms.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- early 20th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
astronomyautonomyeconomydiagram
In a sentence
Lay the ruler across weight and height, and the nomogram gives the dose where it crosses the third line.