ent

Translingual edit

Etymology edit

Abbreviation of French partie entière, Spanish parta entera, etc.

Symbol edit

ent

(mathematics, rare) A symbol for the floor function.

Usage notes edit

Mentioned in ISO 80000-2:2019 as an alternative to the ⌊x⌋ bracket notation.

English edit

English Wikipedia has an article on:

ent

Wikipedia

Pronunciation edit

IPA^(key): /ɛnt/
Audio (Southern England) (file)
Rhymes: -ɛnt

Etymology 1 edit

Learned borrowing from Old English ent (“giant”), from Proto-West Germanic *anti; introduced by J. R. R. Tolkien in The Lord of the Rings, 1954–55, as Ent.

Compare Middle English *ent, eont (“giant”), inherited from the Old English word, but which apparently did not survive through the Middle English period into Modern times. Apparently survived in some German dialects as Enz (“giant”), also in composite forms. Compare ettin.

Noun edit

ent (plural ents)

(fantasy) A large, fictional, humanoid, walking tree in works by J. R. R. Tolkien.
- 2003, Walter Scheps, “The Fairy-tale Morality of The Lord of the Rings”, in Jared Lobdell, editor, A Tolkien Compass:
  […] and that fine young ent Quickbeam is merely a minor crux in an Old English glossary (the name Quickbeam means 'living tree' in Old English).
- 2003, Allen Paterson, Trees for Your Garden, page 180:
  But this should not lead to complete avoidance, as if it is like some dire incursion of triffids or ents.
- 2003, Robert Dunn, Horse Latitudes, page 98:
  Somewhere, ents and manitous laugh grimly For, despite all this, the trees lasted much longer Than most of the presents, and all of the holiday spirit.
- 2006, John Allran, Men of Their Word, page 37:
  Hello, my good friend, myself I present. Not human, nor tree, for I am an ent.
- 2017, Inga Simpson, Understory‎^[1], Hachette UK, →ISBN:
  In The Lords of the Rings there are dark forces in the forest—the Huorn. Huorn are ents who have become more treeish, gone rogue. They can still move and speak, but only with the ents.

Alternative forms edit

Ent

Derived terms edit

treant

Translations edit

a fictional large talking tree

Bengali: এণ্ট (enṭo)
Finnish: entti (fi)
German: Ent m
Marathi: एन्ट m (enṭa)
Russian: энт m (ent)
Serbo-Croatian: ент m, ent m

Etymology 2 edit

Possibly from empty, through assimilation of /m/ to the following /t/.

Verb edit

ent (third-person singular simple present ents, present participle enting, simple past and past participle ented)

(Cornwall) To empty or pour.
- 1976, K. C. Phillips, Westcountry Words and Ways, Newton Abbot: David & Charles, page 47:
  A Truro correspondent remembers being sent to buy a teapot with the admonition 'and see he got a good ent to un'; that is, of course, a good 'pour'.
  "Enting down with rain" is still occasionally heard.