disc

Forms

• disk (US)

Etymology

It is borrowed from French disque or its source Latin discus (“quoit, dish”),^[2][3][4] from Greek δίσκος (dískos, “quoit, dish, disc of the sun”) (see discus).^[5][6] It is a doublet of dais, desk, discus and dish.^[5][6] Etymonline describes disc as the Latinate spelling preferred in British English for most uses of disk.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The seemingly flat round face of the sun, moon or a planet: 1664, written disk.^[5][8][3]

Semantic evolution

The discus or quoit of Greek games is from 1715–20,^[8] with the spelling disc from about 1727.^[5] A thin circular plate of any material is from 1803.^[8] The anatomical disc, the kind that people slip, is from the mid-19th century.^[6] A phonograph record is from 1888, a year after Emile Berliner patented the gramophone, which used a flat disc instead of a cylinder.^[5][8] A disc for storing computer data is from 1947,^[8] usually spelled disk in that sense everywhere.^[6][4] The verb, to work soil with a disc harrow, is chiefly American and New Zealand, from the late 19th century.^[4]

Timeline

• 1664 – the face of the sun or moon.^[5]
• c. 1727 – a discus, spelled disc.^[5]
• 1803 – a thin circular plate.^[8]
• 1888 – a phonograph record.^[5]
• 1947 – in computing.^[8]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A flat, circular plate or object.
2. Something that looks like this, such as the sun's face.
3. A gramophone record, a compact disc or similar recording.
4. (anatomy) A roughly circular, flat structure, such as one between the vertebrae.

Word family

• discoid
• discophile
• MiniDisc
• videodisc
• compact disc
• disc brake
• disc jockey
• laser disc

Related words

• disk
• discus
• dish
• desk
• dais
• discotheque

Usage notes

British English prefers disc for most senses;^[7][9] American English generally uses disk, except for recordings,^[7][4] and disk is the usual form in computing.^[4][6]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c d e Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b c d e f g Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins