Etymologically
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arithmetic

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Pronunciation

  • Noun: /əˈrɪθ.mə.tɪk/[1]
  • Adjective, UK: /ˌær.ɪθˈmet.ɪk/[1]
  • Adjective, US: /ˌɛɹɪθˈmɛtɪk/[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English arsmetike, later arsmetrike,[3][4][5][6] borrowed from Old French arismetique, also arsmetique,[7][4][3][8][9] which the OED derives through Old Occitan arismetica or Late Latin arismetica, an altered form of Latin arithmētica,[7][10][5] from Ancient Greek ἀριθμητική (arithmētikḗ), short for the phrase with τέχνη (tékhnē, “art”), the art of counting,[7][3][5][6] the feminine of ἀριθμητικός (arithmētikós, “of or for reckoning”),[3][10] from ἀριθμέω (arithméō, “to number, count, reckon”), from ἀριθμός (arithmós, “number”).[7][6][4] The s of the French form renders the Greek letter theta.[6][11] Etymonline traces arithmós to Proto-Indo-European *re- (“to reason, count”),[3] and Klein to a base meaning "to count, number" that also gave Old English rīm (“number”) and Latin rītus (“religious custom, rite”);[6] Barnhart takes it as cognate with ars (“art”).[4] In Middle English the word was taken for Latin ars metrica (“the art of measure”), which gave the form arsmetrike, the usual one from the 14th to the 16th century.[7][5][3][9] It was gradually brought back towards the Latin and Greek, through arismetrik in Caxton and arithmetricke in Thomas More, to arithmetyke in Robert Recorde in 1543.[7][4] The adjective, recorded from the mid-17th century, is borrowed from French arithmétique, the OED allowing also Latin arithmēticus.[7][9] Old English had its own word for the art, tælcræft (“tell-craft”).[3][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The art of computing with numbers: about 1250, as arsmetike, according to Barnhart, and to the mid-13th century in Etymonline;[4][3] the OED's first quotation is from about 1305, in a life of St Edmund.[7] Merriam-Webster dates the main sense to the 15th century.[12]

Semantic evolution

Barnhart notes other spellings from French, such as aritmétique in the Roman de la Rose (1270), a poem Chaucer translated about 1370.[4] The learned respelling of the 16th century made the English and the French words agree with the Greek again,[3][6] although a form arsmetry is still recorded from the 1590s.[3][7] From the "science of numbers" the word passed to arithmetical knowledge or reckoning itself (Shakespeare's Coriolanus, before 1616) and to a book on the subject (1623).[7] The adjective, "of or according to arithmetic", came in the mid-17th century,[9][7] giving terms such as arithmetic mean and arithmetic progression,[9][12] and in 1947 the arithmetic unit of a computer.[7] In current use the noun also means a calculation or the working out of figures in a particular case, as in the arithmetic of the budget.[13][12]

Timeline

  • c. 1250 – arsmetike, the art of computation.[4][3]
  • c. 1300 – the form arsmetrike, after ars metrica.[4]
  • c. 1305 – the science of numbers, the OED's first quotation.[7]
  • 1543 – the corrected spelling arithmetyke, in Recorde.[7][4]
  • 1551 – adjective, according to Merriam-Webster.[12]
  • before 1616 – arithmetical knowledge, reckoning, in Shakespeare's Coriolanus.[7]
  • 1623 – a treatise on computation.[7]
  • 1652 – noun, an arithmetician (now obsolete).[7]
  • 1673 – adjective, arithmetical.[7]
  • 1947 – arithmetic unit, in a computer.[7]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The branch of mathematics that deals with numbers and with calculations using them, chiefly addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.[13][12][10]
  2. A calculation or set of calculations, or the working out of the figures in a given case: The arithmetic of the deal never added up.[13][12]
  3. Skill or knowledge in calculating: Her mental arithmetic is quick.[13][7]
  4. A book or treatise on arithmetic.[12][7]

Adjective

  1. Of or relating to arithmetic; following its rules; also arithmetical.[12][13][9]
  2. Changing by equal steps, as in an arithmetic progression, where each term differs from the last by the same amount.[12][9]

Word family

  • arithmetically
  • arithmetician
  • arithmetic mean
  • arithmetic progression
  • arithmetical

References

  1. ^ a b Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  5. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b c d e f Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  10. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  11. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  13. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins