Page 1 of 2

POLYMATH

Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2005 10:24 am
by Dr. Goodword
• polymath •

Pronunciation: pah-lee-mæth

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: A person of great learning in diverse areas of human knowledge; a Renaissance Man or Woman.

Notes: This good word is yet another in our series of words that are not what they seem. No, it is not someone who can solve several math problems at once but a person of great learning. Someone who has deep knowledge of a variety of fields, though we tend to think of them, as we do Leonardo da Vinci, as excelling in those fields, too. The abstract noun is polymathy and the adjective, polymathic. I suppose a specialist would be a unimath, though this word has not emerged yet.

In Play: If you are as tired of hearing the obsequious phrase "rocket scientist" as I, you will be happy for this alternative expression, "You don't have to be a polymath to know not to lick frozen metal." Polymaths are generally very useful folks to have around; but not always: "Claire Voyant is a remarkable polymath who knows everything about everything except her job."

Word History: This excellent word is none other than Greek polymathes "knowning much" from poly "many, much" + mathein "to learn". This is the same root that we find in Sanskrit medha "wisdom" and Avestan mazda "idea, memory". In Albanian it is mund "can". The original Proto-Indo-European root, *mendh-, may contain the *men- of mental and English mind but, however obvious this might seem, there are problems in making the connection. (We are grateful to Luciano Eduardo de Oliveira—the Brazilian dude in the Alpha Agora—for being smart enough to come up with today's good word.)

Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2005 10:56 am
by Brazilian dude
Me, smart? I just thought of the word, you dug all that stuff up :D .

Brazilian dude

Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2005 1:47 pm
by astrokatastro
For me is a difrent thing polimathis and a smart man. A combination of that is the best .

Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2005 2:17 pm
by Brazilian dude
Astrokatastro, are you calling me stupid? :D

Brazilian dude

Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2005 1:38 pm
by astrokatastro
No my friend. i do not know you.Just i wanted to say something clever to cover my stupidity, and amatheia too.

Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2005 1:39 pm
by Brazilian dude
amatheia
That's the name of the red blood cell, isn't it? I know it is.

Brazilian dude

Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2005 1:44 pm
by astrokatastro
i don;y understant what you mean but i used it as oposite to matheia mathainw gnwrizw (as a man whi don't know nothing, and all that he knows isnt right

Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2005 1:51 pm
by Brazilian dude
And I don't know what you mean. We're even now.

Brazilian dude

Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2005 3:01 pm
by Apoclima
a-matheia

An unschooled person, a man without math?

Apo

Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2005 12:59 am
by Apoclima

Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2005 9:41 am
by anders
amatheia
That's the name of the red blood cell, isn't it? I know it is.
Not by a mile. A corpuscle of any colour is, in Latin letters, aimosphaírio.
Aμαθεια is "ignorance". Astro's quote is, I suppose, Μαθεια μαθαιυω γνωριζω, but I can't translate it.

Dear Astro, please don't be discouraged by our not understanding some of your Greek. Your English is improving incredibly fast.

Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2005 9:52 am
by Brazilian dude
please don't be discouraged by our not understanding some of your Greek
?
Some? That's wishful thinking :D

Brazilian dude

Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2005 9:55 am
by Brazilian dude
Oh, I know now. A red blood cell (or erythrocyte, fancy huh?) is an hemácia in Portuguese and an hematíe in Spanish, hence the confusion.

Brazilian dude

Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2005 2:16 pm
by astrokatastro
Μάθηση is like about learning in English.
Related words is Mαθητής , μάθημα, μαθητεύω, α-μάθεια,and αμαθής-unschooled and I don’t know if she was an ancient god

Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2005 5:14 pm
by Apoclima
Thanks, astro!

Cool! I'm beginning to read Greek, all those years of learning the alphabet are paying off!

Apo