December 1, 1997

zenzic, zenzizenzizenzic

I have found the word "zenzizenzizenzic" in a couple of places on the Web, defining it as "the eighth power of a number"--could you tell if this is a real word, and if so where it comes from?

Yes, it's a real word, and yes, though you didn't ask, its continued existence is due solely to the fact that it's really weird-looking, not because it's useful or common or anything like that.

The base form of this word is zenzic, meaning '(of a number) square', or as a noun 'a square number'. It is found in several derived forms, including zenzicube 'the square of the cube; the sixth power of a number', your zenzizenzizenzic, and others.

The origin, though clear, is going to get complicated. The English word zenzic is borrowed from Latin zenzicus, which is itself borrowed from German, which is itself borrowed from an earlier Latin form census, which is itself a translation from an Arabic word mál, literally 'possessions; property'. Italian mathematics works of the thirteenth century have censo in the same sense--it's the same word minus the German-Latin-English sequence.

Zenzic and its various forms had a brief period of use among mathematicians in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but have been obsolete ever since. Except among those who think that words like this are cool.