Etymologically
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discrete

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Pronunciation

  • UK: /dɪˈskɹiːt/[1]
  • US: /dɪˈskɹit/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English discrete,[2][3] borrowed from Latin discrētus (“separated, separate, distinct”),[4][2][5][6][7] the past participle of discernō (“to separate, distinguish”),[4][3][8] which is formed from dis- (“off, away”) and cernō (“to distinguish, separate, sift”), traced by Etymonline to Proto-Indo-European *krei- (“to sieve”).[6] Etymonline and Barnhart see it as partly or wholly borrowed through Old French, which had discret and the feminine discrete;[6][3] the OED compares Middle French discret (“different, distinct”), recorded from the early 14th century, and quantité discrete in mathematics from the second half of that century.[4] The same Latin participle, in the Medieval Latin sense "discerning, careful", gave discreet, so the two English words are doublets.[3][7][9][6] The Latin abstract noun discrētiō is the source of discretion.[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Separate, distinct: about 1385, in Thomas Usk's The Testament of Love, according to Barnhart.[3] The OED's first record is from before 1398, in Trevisa's translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus, both for "individually distinct, detached from others" and for "consisting of distinct parts, discontinuous".[4]

Semantic evolution

Trevisa used the word several times to translate the Latin, but it did not come into wider use until the late 16th century.[4][3][8] In the 15th century discret, discrete and discreet were spellings of one word with both meanings, and the OED thinks speakers may have felt the two as a single word with several senses.[3][4] By the late 16th century the spelling discreet had become attached to the sense "careful, prudent", perhaps after words such as sweet, while discrete was kept for the senses of music, philosophy, medicine and other learned fields where the Latin word was known;[3][6][9] Ayto notes that discrete, borrowed directly from Latin, keeps the original meaning more closely.[9] Dictionaries settle on discrete for this word from the 18th century, probably to keep the two apart in writing.[4] Technical senses followed: music, of tones separated by fixed intervals (1664); medicine, of skin lesions that do not run together (1684); and, in Swedenborg's writings, discrete degrees of existence (1770).[4] Johnson (1755) defined it as "distinct; disjoined; not continuous", quoting Hale on discrete quantity, which is measured by number.[10] In later use, often in quantum theory, it describes something that can take only certain separate values.[4]

Timeline

  • c. 1385 – separate, distinct, in Usk's Testament of Love.[3]
  • a1398 – separate, individually distinct; consisting of distinct parts, in Trevisa.[4]
  • 1624 – a verb discrete, to divide into distinct parts (obsolete by the mid 19th century).[4][11]
  • 1628 – grammar and logic, of a conjunction or proposition, disjunctive (obsolete by 1755).[4]
  • 1664 – music, of tones separated by fixed intervals.[4]
  • 1684 – medicine, of lesions, not confluent.[4]
  • 1770 – discrete degrees, in a translation of Swedenborg.[4]
  • 1871 – noun, a discrete thing.[4]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Separate and distinct; forming a unit of its own: The course is taught in four discrete modules.[12][2][13]
  2. Made up of distinct or unconnected parts; not continuous.[12][13][4]
  3. (mathematics, statistics) Of a variable or distribution, taking only a finite or countable set of separate values, so that it is analysed by summation rather than integration.[12][13][14]
  4. (music) Of tones, separated by fixed intervals of pitch, as the notes of a piano.[4]
  5. (medicine) Of skin lesions, separate from one another; not confluent.[4]
  6. (obsolete, 1628–1755) Of a conjunction or proposition, expressing an alternative or an opposition; disjunctive.[4][10]

Noun

  1. A discrete thing; in electronics, a discrete component.[4]

Word family

  • discretely
  • discreteness
  • discrete variable

Usage notes

Collins warns against confusing discrete with discreet.[12] The spelling discreet is still occasionally found for this word, and is usually regarded as an error.[4]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  7. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  8. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  9. ^ a b c d Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  10. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  11. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  12. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  13. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  14. ^ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster