Algorithm
A person became a process, then a word for rules machines follow.
From al-Khwarizmi, the Latinized name of a Persian mathematician whose work shaped algebra and computation vocabulary.Etymology without the attic dust
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Popular origin cards
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Arabic
Algorithm
A person became a process, then a word for rules machines follow.
Science & MathLatinSalary
The word still carries the old link between pay, provisions, and survival.
MoneyOld FrenchMortgage
A cheerful modern word with a very medieval little shadow.
MoneyCzechRobot
Before robots were gadgets, they were a labor anxiety.
TechnologyItalianQuarantine
A public-health rule became a permanent word for waiting apart.
HealthNahuatlAvocado
A common grocery word with a pre-Columbian root system.
FoodArabicCoffee
A word that traveled almost as well as the habit did.
FoodSanskritOrange
The fruit named the color in English, not the other way around.
FoodPersian / ArabicCheckmate
A board-game ending became a general word for being trapped.
GamesGreekPanic
A feeling named after a god who could make the landscape feel alive.
EmotionOld English / Greek mythClue
A clue is still a thread that gets you out of a maze.
MysteryItalian / GreekDisaster
The word remembers when catastrophe had astrology in it.
Risk