zenzizenzizenzic love

zenzizenzizenzic

Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun mathematics, obsolete the eighth power of a number

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Coined by Robert Recorde (as zenzizenzizenzike) in his 1557 mathematics book The Whetstone of Witte, from root word zenzic.

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Examples

Comments

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  • The eighth power of a number.

    December 10, 2006

  • That is so cool.

    March 29, 2007

  • I honestly didn't think that it was real.

    May 3, 2007

  • The zenzizenzizenzic of a number is its eighth power. This term was suggested by Robert Recorde, a 16th century Welsh writer of popular mathematics textbooks, in his work The Whetstone of Witte, published in 1557, although his spelling was zenzizenzizenzike.

    The word is obsolete except as a curiosity; the Oxford English Dictionary has only one citation for it. It survives as an historical oddity.The word dates from a time when there was no easy way of denoting the powers of numbers other than squares and cubes. Its root word is the German zenzic, from the medieval Italian censo, meaning "squared." Since the square of a square of a number is its fourth power, Recorde used the word zenzizenzic (spelt by him as zenzizenzike) to express it. This is a condensed form of the Italian censo di censo, used by Leonardo of Pisa in his famous book Liber Abaci of 1202. Similarly, as the sixth power of a number is equal to the square of its cube, Recorde used the word zenzicubike (a more modern spelling, zenzicube, is found in Samuel Jeake's Logisticelogia) to express it. Finally, the word zenzizenzizenzic denotes the square of the square of a number's square, which is its eighth power. Zenzizenzizenzic has more Z's than any other known word in the English language.

    --from Wikipedia

    May 3, 2007

  • So...censodicensodicenso could possibly be the Italian version of the word. Or is it censodicensodicensodicenso? ;-)

    May 3, 2007

  • At least!

    May 4, 2007

  • This would be totally killer in Scrabble! Unless maybe there aren't enough z's in the game to use it.

    May 4, 2007

  • Seems to me you'd need "Scrabble Plus" for this one. ;-)

    May 4, 2007

  • Favorited! This is such a fun word!

    March 3, 2008

  • Where have you been all my life?!

    September 5, 2008

  • I wish I could get this on my license plate.

    September 9, 2008

  • I wish I could get zuccaciyecioglu on a license plate.

    September 9, 2008

  • I wish I had cars as big as yours.

    September 9, 2008

  • What is it with big things, rt?

    September 9, 2008

  • Need a big car for a big license plate, don't you? Otherwise you start to resemble a big metal fish with one flipper.

    September 10, 2008

  • *whispers sideways* He was diagnosed with monoflipper anxiety you know.

    September 10, 2008

  • Hey! That's how rumors get started.

    Not to mention lists.

    September 10, 2008

  • JM is so pleased he has discovered that zenzizenzizenzic "doeth represent the square of squares squared", or eighth power of a number. How to use in conversation?

    February 1, 2009

  • Someone should make a song out of this.

    July 20, 2009

  • I believe I have actually fallen in love with wordnik now.

    September 3, 2011

  • Never mind, the Wordnik development team are working on a fix.

    September 3, 2011

  • :-\

    September 3, 2011

  • Working on a fix for Wordnikphilia? Or monoflipper anxiety?

    September 3, 2011

  • Holy! Instant love! Now to memorize it and proceed to never use it in my entire life except to amuse myself when I'm blue, during which I will promptly remind myself that such a word as "zenzizenzizenzic" exists and all will be well.

    December 31, 2011