Number & MeasureGreek → English
Parallelogram
/ˌpærəˈlɛləɡræm/noun
A four-sided figure whose opposite sides are parallel and equal.
The Greek roots
παράλληλος
parállēlos
beside one another
γραμμή
grammḗ
line, stroke
Literally: “of parallel lines”
The story of the word
Euclid's παραλληλόγραμμον means the figure of parallel lines, and γραμμή is a drawn stroke from γράφειν, to scratch. The gram in this word is therefore a line, not a weight, despite looking identical to the gram on a kitchen scale. Newton's parallelogram of forces carried the term into mechanics in 1687.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Late Latin → French → English
- First recorded
- 16th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
paralleldiagramgrammarprogram
In a sentence
Push a rectangle sideways and it becomes a parallelogram with the same area.