algebra: [16] Algebra symbolizes the debt of Western culture to Arab mathematics, but ironically when it first entered the English language it was used as a term for the setting of broken bones, and even sometimes for the fractures themselves (‘The helpes of Algebra and of dislocations’, Robert Copland, Formulary of Guydo in surgery 1541). This reflects the original literal meaning of the Arabic term al jebr, ‘the reuniting of broken parts’, from the verb jabara ‘reunite’.
The anatomical connotations of this were adopted when the word was borrowed, as algebra, into Spanish, Italian, and medieval Latin, from one or other of which English acquired it. In Arabic, however, it had long been applied to the solving of algebraic equations (the full Arabic expression was ’ilm aljebr wa’lmuqābalah ‘the science of reunion and equation’, and the mathematician al- Khwarizmi used aljebr as the title of his treatise on algebra – see ALGORITHM), and by the end of the 16th century this was firmly established as the central meaning of algebra in English.
algebra (n.)
1550s, from Medieval Latin algebra, from Arabic al jabr ("in vulgar pronunciation, al-jebr" [Klein]) "reunion of broken parts," as in computation, used 9c. by Baghdad mathematician Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi as the title of his famous treatise on equations ("Kitab al-Jabr w'al-Muqabala" "Rules of Reintegration and Reduction"), which also introduced Arabic numerals to the West. The accent shifted 17c. from second syllable to first. The word was used in English 15c.-16c. to mean "bone-setting," probably from Arab medical men in Spain.
双语例句
1. She is fascinated by algebra while he considers it meaningless nonsense.
她对代数非常着迷，而他却认为代数毫无意义。
来自柯林斯例句
2. He was not good at algebra in middle school.
他中学时不擅长代数.
来自《简明英汉词典》
3. In algebra, the sign X usually denotes an unknown quantity.
在代数里, 符号X常用来表示未知数.
来自《简明英汉词典》
4. His classmates were labouring with elementary algebra.
他的同学们正在绞尽脑汁地演算初等代数题.
来自《简明英汉词典》
5. He would allow John slyly to copy his answers to impossibly difficult algebra questions.
