Science, ideas & the artsFrom names to wordsArabic exports

algorithm

The word is a mathematician's name: al-Khwārizmī, 'the man from Khwarazm'. Latin translations of his book on Indian numerals opened 'Dixit Algorizmi', so algorismus came to mean reckoning with Hindu-Arabic numerals (and Spanish guarismo a single digit); a false link with Greek arithmós bent the spelling into algorithm, and computing carried it worldwide and back into Arabic.

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820 CEArabic

Hops are evenly spaced; labels show the year each form is first attested.