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sum

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Pronunciation

Etymology

It is Middle English summe, somme, borrowed from Anglo-Norman summe, summe (“amount, total; essential point”) (modern French somme),[2][3][4] from summa (“the top; main thing, essence; total”),[2][3][5] a noun use of the feminine of summus “highest”,[2][3][4] earlier *supmos, from the root of super (“over”) (see over).[3][2][6] The verb is from Old French summer, sommer, or directly from Medieval Latin summāre (“to add up”).[2][3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

A quantity or amount of money: about 1290 in the OED, about 1300 in Barnhart and Etymonline.[7][3][2]

Semantic evolution

The passage from “highest” to “total” is probably due to the Roman custom of adding a column of figures upwards and writing the total at the top, which Barnhart and Etymonline compare with the modern bottom line.[3][2] The whole, or the principal points viewed together, is from about 1300, and the essence of a writing or speech from the mid-14th century.[2] The mathematical aggregate of numbers is from the early 15th century,[2][4] and an arithmetical problem to be solved, as in doing sums at school, from 1803.[2] Sum total is from the late 14th century, after Medieval Latin summa totalis.[2] The verb, to count up, is from before 1325 in Barnhart;[3] to state briefly the substance of something is from before 1398 in Barnhart and the 1620s in Etymonline,[3][2] and since about 1700 is usually sum up.[2] Word Origins links a schoolchild's sums with a judge's summing up, and notes that summary and summit come from the same Latin.[5]

Timeline

  • c. 1290 – a sum of money.[7]
  • c. 1300 – the whole, the main points.[2]
  • before 1325 – the verb, to count up.[3]
  • late 14th century – sum total.[2]
  • early 15th century – the result of adding.[2]
  • 1803 – an arithmetical problem.[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. The number obtained by adding two or more numbers.
  2. A problem in arithmetic.
  3. An amount of money.
  4. The whole amount; the total.
  5. The essence or gist of something; a summary.

Verb

  1. To add up.
  2. (usually sum up) To give a short account of; to summarize.

Word family

  • summability
  • summable
  • sumless
  • sumlessness
  • checksum
  • zero-sum
  • sum-up
  • outsum

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  5. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  7. ^ a b Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press