Talk:Numeral prefix

Untitled
Just thought I'd say that 11 is "undecim" (numeral) "undec", "unde" (prefix)

Where comes this "zopi" from?

08 Dec. 2006: The link to phrontistery.info seems to be bogus as the site appears to be one of those parked advertising sites. Anyone now what a real link would be?

I would support merging the Greek and Latin prefix pages into this one. 66.171.157.133 18:05, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Chemical nomenclature
Organic chemistry follows these prefixes pretty closely, except for the first four, which are:

1 meth- 2 eth- 3 prop- 4 but-

Does anyone know why they differ? See: Nomenclature

Maerk 01:42, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

OK, I found a few answers on the Online Etymology Dictionary:

Meth- comes from Greek methu, meaning wine; eth- is linked to ether; prop- comes from pro and pion, Greek words meaning "forward" and "fat", respectively (propane is related to fatty acids); and but- comes from Latin butyrum, meaning butter. So they don't have anything to do with numbers after all!

Should this be included in the article? I think it's anomalous enough to get a mention. Until now I thought that meth, eth, prop and but were Greek numbers, because I knew the others (i.e. pent, hex, hept, etc) to be derived from numbers. Perhaps others will have drawn the same (erroneous) conclusion.

Maerk 01:52, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

citing
The article currently sites some sources. If anyone feels more sources are needed, please list the remaining unsubstantiated claims here. Else, let's remove the tag. OK? &#151; Xiutwel ♫☺♥♪ (talk) 21:00, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Old English
If "Twi" is considered the Old English Prefix for 2, "Thri" sould be included for 3 (as in "Thrice" - it is a word you can check a dictionary) but I don't know how to add it. 217.33.134.118 (talk) 11:30, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Prefixes from this column?
"The prefixes in this column are also unbound morphemes." Uh, what column is this referring to? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.240.25.63 (talk) 00:29, 20 July 2008 (UTC)


 * The "English" column. It's footnote number 2. 91.107.133.40 (talk) 13:39, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Mega-
I nominated megagon for deletion and the result was to keep. Any discussion on the inclusion of mega- for a million in the table for the article even if not literal?? Georgia guy (talk) 14:42, 20 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I'd leave it out. It's part of a whole 'nother system. Maybe a link to metric prefixes?


 * And here I thought "megagone" meant "I'm so outa here!" — kwami (talk) 14:58, 20 February 2012 (UTC)


 * leaving out "mega" for million is a bad flaw, since this is a term that is in use and therefore should be in the article. The Greek megas means great or large, but the metric prefix mega, adopted from the Greek, means "million".  Unless the article is retitled "Numeral prefixes used in archaic languages", "mega" should be included. Geoffrey.landis (talk) 16:26, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

once, twice, thrice?
what comes after on- and twi- in the once, twice descriptions? anyone know? 173.180.202.22 (talk) 14:26, 19 April 2012 (UTC)


 * AFAIK it stops at thrice. — kwami (talk) 16:18, 19 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Before thrice or after? 173.180.202.22 (talk) 02:53, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Neither after nor before, excepting that it then continues to "thrice". No further words in the series have ever been attested, outside arbitrary coinages that have not attained popularity. Double sharp (talk) 06:36, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
 * According to this, there should be nothing after the "once, twice, thrice" series.
 * However, as “once”, “twice”, “thrice” obviously come from the Middle English cardinal numbers “on” (one), “twi” (two), “thri” (three) plus the “-ce” suffix (from the Anglo-Saxon adverbial genitive ending “-es”), so the following “-ce” words should theoretically be compliant to Middle English cardinal numbers, the "once, twice, thrice" series should technically be:
 * "once, twice, thrice, fourice/frice, fifce, sixce, sevence, eightce, nince, tence"
 * By the way, DROD promotes some protologisms of the "once, twice, thrice" series, such as:
 * "once, twice, thrice, quarce, quince, sence, septence, octence, novence, tonce"
 * This is technically incorrect though. If a full Latin-compliant series of "-ce" is needed, then it should theoretically be:
 * "semelice, bisice, terice, quaterice, quinquice, sexice, septice, octice, novice, decice"
 * Because the Latin series is:
 * "semel, bis, ter, quater, quinquies, sexies, septies, octies, novies, decies" Yejianfei (talk) 15:38, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

In once, twice, thrice, the numerals are the roots of the words, not prefixes. The -ce is a suffix. Koro Neil (talk) 03:33, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Something funny
If ten is "decem-" then why is December the 12th month? Why isn't it the 10th month? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.170.75.177 (talk) 01:49, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
 * From December: "December gets its name from the Latin word decem (meaning ten) because it was originally the tenth month of the year in the Roman calendar, which began in March. The winter days following December were not included as part of any month. Later, the months of January and February were created out of the monthless period and added to the beginning of the calendar, but December retained its name." Double sharp (talk) 04:19, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Interesting. I've always been aware of the September (7)/October (8)/November (9)/December (10) prefixes misaligning with those months' place in our modern Gregorian calendar, as well as their etymology rooted in the originally 10-month Roman calendar. However, the semi-apocryphal explanation I've always heard (and repeated) was that July and August were the newly created months, invented in honor of Julius and Augustus Caesar shortly after the dawn of the Roman Empire in the 1st Century AD.
 * As it turns out, you're completely correct. The Romans had already been using a 12-month calendar since ca. 500 BC, with January and February created at the beginning of the year as you mentioned. July and August were merely the already existing months of Quintilis (5) and Sextilis (6) renamed in honor of their respective Caesars in the 1st Century.
 * Today, I learned. Cancun101 (talk) 15:20, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
 * That said, I wonder if a footnote in this article is in order to indicate the context of the original 10-month Roman calendar? Cancun101 (talk) 15:27, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

metric numeral systems
Aren't the decimal metric system (ten to the x power) and binary metric system (two to the ten times x power) actual number systems? If so, why aren't they here?

Robert Dell (talk) 18:21, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * This table is for all numbers 1-10,000. These are the only numbers with numerical prefixes. Georgia guy (talk) 18:51, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * In principle you could derive Greek prefixes for a few higher powers of ten, i.e. 105 decakismyria-, 106 hecatontakismyria-, 107 chiliakismyria-, and 108 myriakismyria-, as these numbers appear spelled out in Archimedes' work. But I haven't seen anyone actually using these (though Modern Greek seems to have preserved the idea of expressing 106 as 102 × 104). Apollonius made alternative names, but these are lost. However, the article mentions Sanskrit prefixes, which should allow us to go further than we would ever need to. Double sharp (talk) 03:22, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Missing term?
Is there no prefix for zero? -- 86.121.6.228 (talk) 09:39, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes there is, but it's not common for obvious reasons. One example is "nullisomic" (having zero copies of a chromosome instead of the normal two). Double sharp (talk) 06:35, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

hecto-
Is the prefix hecto- correct in this listing? It is currently listed for hex (ἕξ) in column "Ordinal Distributive". Though from my knowledge it stems from ἑκατόν (100), backed by Hectolitre. --Masl (talk) 15:29, 30 May 2016 (UTC)
 * It's only used for 100 as an SI metric prefix, many of which are abbreviations, such as deci- for decim- (1/10) and milli- for millesim- (1/1000). Mild Bill Hiccup (talk) 08:25, 1 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Otherwise the Greek prefix for 100 is... Georgia guy (talk) 13:09, 1 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Prieur wrote in his explanation of the new metric system, at its legal introduction in 1795: hecto is an abbreviation of hécato or hécaton, meaning hundred, a hundred times. Actually hectos means, in Greek, sixth; so the entire word hecaton would have been preferred if it had not been too long for compound words. Furthermore, hecato and hecaton do not sound well in French, a serious drawback for a prefix that should become familiar. Hellenists will be aware that hecto is an abbreviation of hecaton ; but others will not care. Ceinturion (talk) 14:43, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Mixed Greek/Latin prefix series?
If mono- is a Greek prefix and bi- is a Latin prefix, then why do we have mono/bi word pairs like monolingual/bilingual, monogamous/bigamous, monopod/bipod, etc.? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.21.29.157 (talk) 22:40, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
 * It's because they are neologisms. They were not created to communicate with the dead from Ancient Greek or Rome. Ceinturion (talk) 15:00, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

No latin prefixes for 22,24,25?
I know i added some now but can someone explain why back then there were no latin prefixes for 22,24,25,31,120,2000,3000,5000,10000,80000, and 100000? Could someone explain why they didn't add any latin prefixes before? 24.150.136.68 (talk) 11:03, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Oligo-
Much as we list Greek-based "poly-" and Latin-based "multi-" for "many", I think we should list Greek-based "oligo-" for "few". If there is a corresponding Latin-based prefix, we'd list that too. If you know the Latin-based prefix for "few" would you add both of these? 64.132.59.226 (talk) 17:12, 4 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I know only one word with that prefix, Oligocene, which was a geologic period 30 million years ago. "Poly" and "multi" are prefixes for an unspecified number, but how is oligo- used as a numerical prefix?? Georgia guy (talk) 17:17, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Yes, excellent question: oligomer, oligonucleotide, oligopeptide, oligosaccharide, and oligoester are common biochemical terms. When the specific size is known, the "oligo-" is replaced with "mono-", "di-", "tri-", "tetra-" etc. When the specific size can be quite large, "oligo-" is replaced with "poly-". 64.132.59.226 (talk) 18:08, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

I couldn't find a comparable Latin prefix, so I went a head and added the Greek prefix "oligo-" without a corresponding Latin prefix. 64.132.59.226 (talk) 15:13, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

deci ?
Sad to see this missing  - 1/10 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deci-

septuagesima-
The 70th Latin ordinal is listed on the page as septuagesima-. Is that correct? The pattern would seem to imply that the 70th ordinal should be septuagesim-. Can someone please confirm whether septuagesima- is indeed the correct ordinal? Thanks in advance, allixpeeke (talk) 11:19, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, you're correct. Thanks for noticing. Mild Bill Hiccup (talk) 08:59, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Fourth vs Quarter
Brit here. I do believe that fourth is only used for the fractional ¼ in North America, everywhere else in the world it's a quarter.*


 * Except 25c is a quarter-dollar, because you just love to contradict yourselves… ;o) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Margolotta (talk • contribs) 01:49, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Let's delete holo
I suggest deleting "holo- ("entire", "full") e.g. holocaust, holography" from the Greek prefix "one".

In neither of the examples does the prefix mean "one" ("holocaust," for example, means "entirely burnt", not "burnt once". If we keep it, we need a better example and a citation. Geoffrey.landis (talk) 16:15, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Inconsistencies in supposedly consistent series
The article provides examples of supposedly consistent series. However, these appear to contain inconsistencies, as outlined below. The first row is quoted from the article, the next row shows the logically consistent series according to the Table in this same article.

Cardinal Latin series
 * unicycle, bicycle, tricycle, quadricycle unicycle, ducycle, tricycle, quadricycle


 * uniped, biped, triped, quadruped, centipede, millipede uniped, duped, triped, quadruped, centipede, millipede

Distributive Latin series ("Trinary" is also consistent, but "ternary" is arguably more common.)
 * unary, binary, trinary, quaternary, quinary, senary, … vicenary … centenary … singulary, binary, trinary/ternary, quaternary, quinary, senary, … vicenary … centenary …

So the appropriate action(s) could be as follows.
 * The examples need to be corrected — or even removed (which might leave no examples) — if they're wrong (which they probably aren't).
 * The table should be corrected if it's wrong (which it probably isn't).
 * Add a note to the examples identifying any inconsistent items, and (ideally) explaining why they occur (rather than the consistent alternative).

—DIV (137.111.13.4 (talk) 01:01, 14 October 2021 (UTC))


 * See further discussion on Wiktionary under bifurcate.
 * —DIV (137.111.13.4 (talk) 04:44, 19 October 2021 (UTC))

Nonsense
Somebody please remove the nonsense from the bottom of the table. Georgia guy (talk) 00:14, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Octavia E. Butler
The origin of the month name 'October' is linked to Octavia E. Butler. This seems like an error. Frogger430 (talk) 13:42, 13 January 2023 (UTC)


 * I went ahead and corrected the links pertaining to the correct Roman Calendar months RobiBuecheler (talk) 07:18, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

Table of number prefixes in English
towards the end of the table, Million, Billion, etc. are listed, but there is a problem when it comes to short- vs. long form where

(short US) Billion (109) is also (long non-US) Milliard (109 or Thousand Million), and

(short US) Trillion (1012) is equivalent to (long non-US) Billion (1012).

This needs to be fixed either in the table or by linking to English numerals or Long and short scales. RobiBuecheler (talk) 07:04, 26 February 2023 (UTC)