struthious

Pronounced: STROO-thee-us, adj

Notes: Another new word to me

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Yesterday’s word

The word quantum, as a noun means

• a quantity or amount
• a portion
• a large amount
• the smallest amount of something that can exist independently

As an adjective, it means

• large
• relating to the quantum theory

First usage

Our word came into English in the mid-1500s

Background / Comments

I find it interesting that the word can mean both “large” and “small” (the 3rd and 4th definition of the noun form above). In physics, a “quantum jump” or “quantum leap” is a small change, but non-physicists use the term to mean a large change – for example, “a quantum leap forward in our understand of X”. I also find the 4th definition amusing; when the word “atom” was coined, it was supposed to be the smallest amount of anything that could exist, but then the sub-atomic particles were discovered. Our word came from the Latin word quantus (how much; how great).