- ellipse
[ellipse 词源字典] - ellipse: [18] Greek élleipsis meant literally ‘defect, failure’. It was a derivative of elleípein, literally ‘leave in’, hence ‘leave behind, leave out, fall short, fail’, a compound verb formed from the prefix en- ‘in’ and leípein ‘leave’ (which is related to English loan and relinquish). It was borrowed into English in the 17th century as ellipsis in the grammatical sense ‘omission of a word or words’, but its mathematical use for an ‘oval’ (enshrined in the form ellipse, borrowed via French ellipse and Latin ellīpsis) comes from the notion that a square drawn on lines passing vertically and laterally through the centre of an ellipse ‘falls short’ of the entire length of the lateral line.
=> loan, relinquish[ellipse etymology, ellipse origin, 英语词源] - ellipse (n.)
- 1753, from French ellipse (17c.), from Latin ellipsis "ellipse," also, "a falling short, deficit," from Greek elleipsis (see ellipsis). So called because the conic section of the cutting plane makes a smaller angle with the base than does the side of the cone, hence, a "falling short." The Greek word was first applied by Apollonius of Perga (3c. B.C.E.). to the curve which previously had been called the section of the acute-angled cone, but the word earlier had been technically applied to a rectangle one of whose sides coincides with a part of a given line (Euclid, VI. 27).
