Number & MeasureGreek → English
Theorem
/ˈθiərəm/noun
A statement proved from axioms and previously proved results.
The Greek roots
θεώρημα
theṓrēma
a spectacle, thing contemplated
Literally: “a thing looked at”
Follow a root:θεώρημα1 word
The story of the word
A θεωρός was a spectator, and in official use the man a city sent to watch the games or consult an oracle on its behalf. Watching turned into contemplating, and a θεώρημα was whatever was held up for contemplation. Euclid's propositions carried the name, and English took it in the 1550s already fixed to mathematics, leaving the looser sense to theory.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 1550s
Same family
theorytheoreticaltheatre
In a sentence
The proof of the theorem runs to four pages and one long silence.
Pythagoras gets a theorem named after him that Babylonians used first.