Words & WritingGreek → English
Tmesis
/ˈtmiːsɪs/noun
Splitting a word in two and inserting another word into the gap.
The Greek roots
τμῆσις
tmêsis
a cutting
Literally: “a cutting”
Follow a root:τμῆσις1 word
The story of the word
One word cut in half with another shoved into the gap: abso-blooming-lutely, un-bloody-believable. Homer does it constantly, separating a verb from its prefix in a way later grammarians treated as a figure of style rather than the archaism it probably was. The name is simply 'a cutting', from the verb that also yields atom, the thing that cannot be cut, and anatomy, cutting up.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 16th century
Same family
atomanatomyepitometome
In a sentence
Any-old-how is a tmesis that nobody notices any more.
He explained tmesis to the class using a word he then had to apologise for.