ordinate

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English ordinat,^[2][3] borrowed from Latin ōrdinātus (“orderly, regular; in geometry, in alignment, parallel”), the past participle of ōrdinō (“to set in order, arrange”),^[4][5][6][2] from ōrdō (“row, rank, series, arrangement”).^[5][6] The noun of geometry is from New Latin līnea ordināte applicāta (“line applied in an orderly manner”) and līnea ordinātim applicāta,^[2][3][7] whose adverbs come from the Latin participle;^[2][7] the Oxford Dictionary of English and the Concise Oxford give the phrase as Latin līnea ōrdināta applicāta (“line applied parallel”),^[8][9] and Klein explains the noun as the feminine of the participle, "parallel (line)".^[10] The verb, recorded from 1508, comes from the past participial stem ōrdināt-.^[4][11] The word is related to ordain, order and coordinate.^[10][5][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Orderly, regular, moderate: about 1395, in Chaucer's Merchant's Tale,^[4] which speaks of a life "blisful and ordinaat".^[12][13] Chaucer uses the word twice, as ordinaat and ordynat;^[14] Etymonline dates the adjective to the late 14th century.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The adjective, "ordered, regulated, regular", was used from Trevisa (before 1398) until 1668,^[4] and the mathematicians of the 16th century applied it to an ordered series of ratios (1570, in Billingsley's Euclid) and to a regular figure with equal sides and angles (1590–1702).^[4] Johnson (1755) still gave "regular; methodical", quoting Ray: "Ordinate figures are such as have all their sides, and all their angles equal".^[15] The noun began in the geometry of conic sections: in a letter of J. Collins of 1676 it is any of the chords perpendicular to the axis, later half of such a chord.^[4][16] With Cartesian coordinates it came to mean the distance of a point from the x-axis, measured parallel to the y-axis, first in Ditton's Institution of Fluxions (1706),^[4] the date Merriam-Webster Unabridged gives as first known use.^[2] The verb meant to appoint to an office or to holy orders from 1508,^[4] the 1560s in Etymonline,^[5] then to institute or predestine (1555–1850) and to regulate or direct (from 1595, now rare);^[4][11] statisticians and ecologists revived it in 1962 for the operation called ordination.^[4] In entomology the adjective has meant "arranged in rows" since 1826.^[4][2]

Timeline

• c. 1395 – adjective, orderly, regular, moderate.^[4][13]
• before 1398 – ordered, regulated (obsolete by 1668).^[4]
• 1508 – verb, to appoint to an office or to holy orders.^[4]
• 1570 – of ratios, in an ordered series (obsolete).^[4]
• 1590 – of a geometrical figure, regular (obsolete by 1702).^[4]
• 1595 – verb, to regulate, govern, direct.^[4][5]
• 1676 – noun, a chord perpendicular to the axis of a conic section.^[4][16]
• 1706 – noun, the y-coordinate of a point.^[4][2]
• 1826 – entomology, arranged in rows.^[4]
• 1962 – verb, in statistics and ecology, to subject to ordination.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. In a system of Cartesian coordinates, the vertical or y-coordinate of a point, measured parallel to the y-axis; compare abscissa.^{[17][2][4][16]}

Adjective

1. Arranged in rows, as markings on an insect.^[2][4]
2. (archaic) Orderly, regular, moderate.^[4][15]

Verb

1. (rare) To ordain or appoint.^[17][2][4]
2. (rare) To regulate or direct.^[4][11]

Word family

• foreordinate

Related words

• ordination
• ordain
• order
• coordinate
• ordinal
• ordinary
• ordinately

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
11. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Stratmann, Francis Henry (1891), A Middle-English Dictionary, revised by Henry Bradley, Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ a b Skeat, W. W., ed. (1894), The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, vol. VI: Glossarial Index, Oxford: Clarendon Press
14. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
15. ^ 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.
16. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
17. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins