scalaris
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Pronunciation
Forms
scālāris (neuter scālāre); third-declension two-termination adjective[1]
Etymology
It is from Latin scālae + -āris, from the plural scālae (“ladder, steps”).[2][1]
Earliest recorded meaning
Vitruvius is the first to use it, of rods joined in the shape of a ladder.[2][3]
Semantic evolution
Its sense is “of a ladder or flight of steps”.[2][4] Vitruvius also uses the neuter plural scalaria as a noun for the flights of steps in a theatre,[2][4] and inscriptions have the singular scalare in the same sense.[2][4]
English borrowed it as scalar “resembling a ladder” in the 1650s; the mathematical sense was coined by William R. Hamilton in 1846,[5] and Wiktionary records that sense for the Latin word too.[1]
Timeline
- c. 84–c. 25 BC – Vitruvius uses it of a ladder-like frame and, as a noun, of a theatre's steps.[2][3]
- 1650s – English borrows it as scalar.[5]
- 1846 – William R. Hamilton gives scalar its sense in mathematics.[5]
Meanings
Adjective
- Of or relating to a ladder or a flight of steps.[2][4][6]
- (neuter plural as noun, scalaria) A flight of steps, a staircase;[2][4] (singular scalare) the same.[2][4]
- (mathematics) scalar.[1]
Word family
- subscālāris
Related words
References
- ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
- ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
- ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
- ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson