Thesis
/ˈθiːsɪs/noun
A position advanced and defended by argument, or the long piece of research written for a degree.
The Greek roots
Literally: “a thing set down”
The story of the word
Thésis is a placing, from títhēmi, to put down; in argument it is the position you set on the table and then have to hold. English used it first in metrics, for the down-beat of a foot, and only from the 1650s for a dissertation defended in public. The famous formula of thesis, antithesis and synthesis is usually credited to Hegel and is not his phrasing: it came into the textbooks through Fichte and the historian Heinrich Moritz Chalybäus.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 14th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
In a sentence
The whole thesis rests on one survey with ninety respondents.
She finished the thesis in eleven months and has not opened it since.