Re: Unable to cut

From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Tue Sep 17 1996 - 06:57:59 EDT


At 2:07 AM -0500 9/17/96, BibAnsMan@aol.com wrote:
>A student asked me what Greek word means "unable to cut." I'm not sure what
>the application is (a crossword puzzle?). Does anyone know of this Greek
>word?

After a little pondering it occurs to me that the reference MIGHT be to the
Democritean and later Epicurean word for "ultimately indivisible particle
of matter"--our own word "atom" derives from the Greek adjective used as a
substantive, ATOMOS, which derives from Alpha privative and TEMNW/TAMNW
(same root as in PERI-TOMH, "circumcision", "cut," hence "unable to be
cut/divided."

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, USA 63130
(314) 935-4018
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwc@oui.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



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