The noun proportion was first used in English in a 1382 translation of the Holy Bible by theologist John Wycliffe, and the verb came shortly afterwards. At that point it was spelled proporcyon; after a few hundred years alternating in usage with proporcioun and proportion, the latter won out. The word comes from Old French proporcion and Latin proportionem, both of which meant "measurement". Proportionem in turn came from the phrase pro portione, which is best translated as "according to the relation" but literally means "for part": pro meant "for" (and traces to Proto-Indo-European per, or "before") and portione is the ablative singular of portionem, which meant "proportion" or "part" (and derives from Proto-Indo-European pere, which meant "to allot").
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
AUTHORHello! I'm Adam Aleksic. This year, I graduated from Harvard University with a degree in Government and Linguistics. There, I co-founded the Harvard Undergraduate Linguistics Society and wrote a thesis on Serbo-Croatian language policy, magna cum laude. In addition to etymology, I also really enjoy trivia, politics, vexillology, geography, board games, conlanging, art history, and law.
Archives
May 2022
TAGS |