Something to ponder over

A discussion of word histories and origins.
vaibhavd85
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Something to ponder over

Postby vaibhavd85 » Fri Aug 10, 2007 4:47 am

imponderable (adj): difficult or impossible to assess, without appreciable weight.
The word comes from Latin root “ponderare” which means “to weigh”, this word can be split as “im” which means “not” (as in impossible) + “ponderable” which means “able to weighed”.

Contextual example:
The engineer remarked “With such less data at hand the situation is imponderable”.

“The newly discovered metal composite was imponderable, still had strength five times as that of steel”.

Preponderance (N): the state of being greater in number.

Contextual example:
“There has been preponderance of men in the field of National defense till now.”

Ponder (V): consider carefully, think.
To ponder means to figuratively weigh something out in order to evaluate it.

Contextual example:
“After pondering over the facts which showed that the ABC soft was not making much profit, the group head decided to close it down and thus quit IT segment entirely”.

Equiponderance (N): equality of weight, equipoise.
This word can be split as “aequus” which means “equal” (as in equality, equity, equanimity, equipoise etc) + “ponderare” which as we have seen means “to weigh”, thus state of weighing equal is equiponderance.

Ponderous (adj): having great weight; boringly solemn and long winded.

Contextual example:
“His ponderous account of business trip lulled her”.

Was that helpful? Cognates, discussion, feedback are welcome .

Regards,
V

Perry
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Postby Perry » Fri Aug 10, 2007 9:50 am

Equiponderance seems a very ponderous word for the concept of parity of weights.
"Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening all at once. Lately it hasn't been working."
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sluggo
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Postby sluggo » Fri Aug 10, 2007 10:52 am

I thought ponder over was redundant?
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