sesquialterate
English edit
Alternative forms edit
Etymology edit
From Latin sesquialter (“one and a half times”) + English -ate, from sesqui- (“a half and a”) + alter (“another, a second”).
Pronunciation edit
Adjective edit
sesquialterate (not comparable)
- (mathematics, archaic) In a ratio of 3 to 2 or 1½ times to 1.
- 9 and 6 are in a sesquialterate ratio.
- 1818, Iamblichus, Life of Pythagoras Tr. Thomas Taylor (page 328)
- the ratio of 3 to 2, which is sesquialter, forms the symphony diapente […]
- 1859, Frances Power Cobbe, An Essay on Intuitive Morals: Being an Attempt to Popularize Ethical Science, page 84:
- People ignorant of geometry did not know the sesquialterate ratio of the sphere, cylinder, and cone, and therefor no man could know it […]
- 1888, Sir Isaac Newton, Portsmouth Collection of Books and Papers Written or Belonging to Sir Isaac Newton (page xviii)
- from Kepler's Rule of the periodical times of the Planets being in a sesquialterate proportion of their distances from the centers of their orbs I deduced […]
Synonyms edit
References edit
- “sesquialterate, adj.”, in OED Online
, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 2022.
