digit

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin digitus (“finger, toe; finger's breadth”),^[2][3][4][5] which in medieval Latin also meant each of the numbers below ten, a use found in British sources from the 12th century.^[2] The numerical sense comes from counting on the fingers.^[3][6][7][8] The origin of the Latin word is uncertain;^[2] Etymonline, Barnhart, Ayto and the AHD connect it with dīcō (“to say”) and the Indo-European root Proto-Indo-European *deyḱ- (“to show, point out”), so that a finger would be a “pointer”,^[3][8][9][4] while Merriam-Webster refers it to the word family of toe.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

A whole number less than ten, any of the numerals from 1 to 9 (or 0 to 9): ?a1400, in a Middle English arithmetic printed in Rara Mathematica.^[2] Barnhart dates it to probably before 1400, in Trevisa's translation of Bartholomew's De Proprietatibus Rerum,^[8] and Etymonline to the late 14th century.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The original Latin sense came into English only later: a finger or thumb, or a toe, is recorded from 1644, in John Bulwer's Chirologia,^[2][11] and an animal's toe from 1756.^[2] In between, digit was borrowed for measures: in astronomy, one twelfth of the diameter of the sun or moon, used to give the size of an eclipse, from 1591,^[2][11] and a finger's breadth, about three quarters of an inch, from 1625.^[2] Johnson (1755) gave the measure of length as its first sense.^[12] Weekley noted that the numerical sense came first because Arabic notation was based on the ten fingers.^[13] The Oxford Word Origins dates digital to the late 15th century, with its communications sense arising in the mid-20th century.^[14] In American slang digits has meant a telephone number since 1989.^[2]

Timeline

• ?a1400 – a whole number less than ten.^[2]
• 1591 – astronomy: a twelfth of the diameter of the sun or moon.^[2]
• 1625 – a finger's breadth as a unit of length.^[2]
• 1628 – verb (obsolete): to point out.^[2]
• 1644 – a finger, thumb or toe.^[2]
• 1756 – an animal's toe.^[2]
• 1989 – slang: digits, a telephone number.^[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. Any of the ten numerals from 0 to 9, especially as part of a longer number: Enter the six digits of your code.
2. A finger, thumb or toe.
3. (astronomy) One twelfth of the apparent diameter of the sun or moon, used in measuring an eclipse.
4. (historical) A unit of length equal to about three quarters of an inch.

Word family

• digital
• digitiform
• digitize
• double-digit
• binary digit
• significant digit

Related words

• digitalis
• prestidigitation
• index
• indicate
• diction

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
9. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
10. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
14. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press