NODE / 0096attestedPresent-Day English

algorithm

a numeral procedure; later a finite stepwise procedure

DATE: 1699–today
SENSE: default
FAMILY: Indo-European / Germanic
CANONICAL KEY: node:1:algorithm:attested

The spelling is reported in 1699; Merriam-Webster dates its currently defined technical sense to 1926.

ANCESTRAL EDGES

ROOT OF THIS ROOT

GO DEEPERalterationprobable

Middle English · 14th–15th centuries

algorisme / augrim

arithmetic using Hindu-Arabic numerals

SOUND: The older ending -ism was reshaped to -ithm, commonly explained through association with Greek arithmos “number.”
MEANING: Arithmetic or numeral procedure narrowed and generalized into a finite stepwise procedure.
CHRONOLOGY: The spelling is reported in 1699; Merriam-Webster dates its currently defined technical sense to 1926.
SCHOLAR: Merriam-Webster · MacTutor editors
CONFIDENCE: probable — The descent from algorism is secure; the exact force of Greek influence is reported rather than independently demonstrated here.

Algorithm — Word HistorysupportsEtymology and First Known Use

Algorithm as an alteration of algorism.

ORIGINAL ↗

Earliest Known Uses of Some of the Words of Mathematics: AsupportsALGORITHM entry

Reports influence from Greek arithmos.

ORIGINAL ↗

OPEN CANONICAL EDGE 83 ↗

DIRECT DESCENDANT EDGES

THE NEXT HISTORICAL STEP

No reviewed descendants currently reuse this node. Absence describes the graph, not the entire history of the form.

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REVIEWED EDGES: 0
DEEPEST PATH: 0
MODERN DOSSIERS REACHED: 0

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RECORDED EVIDENCE

ATTESTATIONS / FIRST KNOWN USE

SOURCE-REPORTEDlexical corpusestablished

1699

Source-reported English record for the algorithm spelling

The Algorithm or Numeral Figures now in use

algorithm dossier · recorded as algorithm

WITNESS RECORD ↗Earliest Known Uses of Some of the Words of Mathematics: A ↗

DIRECTLY INSPECTEDprinted bookprobable

1704

The e-rara object record and searchable scan locate John Harris's dictionary definition of algorithm.

ALGORITHM, sometimes called Logistica Numeralis, is the Sum of the Principal Rules of Numeral Computation.

algorithm dossier · recorded as algorithm

ETH-Bibliothek Zürich · Rar 98 Ex.A GFWITNESS RECORD ↗Lexicon technicum: or, an universal English dictionary of arts and sciences ↗FACSIMILE ↗

SOURCE-REPORTEDlexicographic first useestablished

1926

Lexicographic first-use record for Merriam-Webster's currently defined technical sense

Sense-specific source-reported first-use date; it does not erase earlier records of the spelling with the numeral-system sense.

algorithm dossier · recorded as algorithm

WITNESS RECORD ↗Algorithm — Word History ↗

EDITORIAL REUSE

WORD DOSSIERS USING THIS NODE

01algorithmalgorithm · established