Gracility

Last updated

Gracility is slenderness, the condition of being gracile, which means slender. It derives from the Latin adjective gracilis (masculine or feminine), or gracile (neuter), [1] which in either form means slender, and when transferred for example to discourse takes the sense of "without ornament", "simple" or various similar connotations. [2]

Contents

In Glossary of Botanic Terms, B. D. Jackson speaks dismissively [3] of an entry in earlier dictionary of A. A. Crozier [4] as follows: "Gracilis (Lat.), slender. Crozier has the needless word 'gracile'". However, his objection would be hard to sustain in current usage; apart from the fact that gracile is a natural and convenient term, it is hardly a neologism. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary [5] gives the source date for that usage as 1623 and indicates the word is misused (through association with grace) for "gracefully slender". [5] This misuse is unfortunate at least, because the terms gracile and grace are unrelated: the etymological root of grace is the Latin word gratia from gratus, meaning 'pleasing', [5] and has nothing to do with slenderness or thinness.[ citation needed ]

In biology

In biology, the term is in common use, whether as English or Latin:

In biological taxonomy, gracile is the specific name or specific epithet for various species. Where the gender is appropriate, the form is gracilis. Examples include:

The same root appears in the names of some genera and higher taxa:

See also

Related Research Articles

A morpheme is the smallest meaningful constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology.

A slang is a vocabulary of an informal register, common in verbal conversation but avoided in formal writing. It also sometimes refers to the language generally exclusive to the members of particular in-groups in order to establish group identity, exclude outsiders, or both. The word itself came about in the 18th century and has been defined in multiple ways since its conception.

In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an object or subject within a phrase, clause, or sentence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Binomial nomenclature</span> Species naming system

In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature, also called binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin grammatical forms, although they can be based on words from other languages. Such a name is called a binomial name, a binomen, binominal name, or a scientific name; more informally it is also historically called a Latin name. In the ICZN, the system is also called binominal nomenclature, "binomi'N'al" with an "N" before the "al", which is not a typographic error, meaning "two-name naming system".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tribe</span> Human social group

The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. Its definition is contested, in part due to conflicting theoretical understandings of social and kinship structures, and also reflecting the problematic application of this concept to extremely diverse human societies. The concept is often contrasted by anthropologists with other social and kinship groups, being hierarchically larger than a lineage or clan, but smaller than a chiefdom, ethnicity, nation or state. These terms are similarly disputed. In some cases tribes have legal recognition and some degree of political autonomy from national or federal government, but this legalistic usage of the term may conflict with anthropological definitions.

In biology, an integument is the tissue surrounding an organism's body or an organ within, such as skin, a husk, shell, germ or rind.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Synonym</span> Words or phrases of the same meaning

A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words begin, start, commence, and initiate are all synonyms of one another: they are synonymous. The standard test for synonymy is substitution: one form can be replaced by another in a sentence without changing its meaning. Words may often be synonymous in only one particular sense: for example, long and extended in the context long time or extended time are synonymous, but long cannot be used in the phrase extended family. Synonyms with exactly the same meaning share a seme or denotational sememe, whereas those with inexactly similar meanings share a broader denotational or connotational sememe and thus overlap within a semantic field. The former are sometimes called cognitive synonyms and the latter, near-synonyms, plesionyms or poecilonyms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sepal</span> Any of the separate parts of the calyx of a flower (excluding the bracts), usually green

A sepal is a part of the flower of angiosperms. Usually green, sepals typically function as protection for the flower in bud, and often as support for the petals when in bloom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Common name</span> Name generally used for a taxon, group of taxa or organism(s)

In biology, a common name of a taxon or organism is a name that is based on the normal language of everyday life; and is often contrasted with the scientific name for the same organism, which is often based in Latin. A common name is sometimes frequently used, but that is not always the case.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pinnation</span> Type of spatial arrangement

Pinnation is the arrangement of feather-like or multi-divided features arising from both sides of a common axis. Pinnation occurs in biological morphology, in crystals, such as some forms of ice or metal crystals, and in patterns of erosion or stream beds.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Glossary of leaf morphology</span>

The following terms are used to describe leaf morphology in the description and taxonomy of plants. Leaves may be simple or compound. The edge of the leaf may be regular or irregular, may be smooth or bearing hair, bristles or spines. For more terms describing other aspects of leaves besides their overall morphology see the leaf article.

In linguistics, a word stem is a part of a word responsible for its lexical meaning. Typically, a stem remains unmodified during inflection with few exceptions due to apophony

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Terminology of homosexuality</span> History of terms used to describe homosexuality

Terms used to describe homosexuality have gone through many changes since the emergence of the first terms in the mid-19th century. In English, some terms in widespread use have been sodomite, Achillean, Sapphic, Uranian, homophile, lesbian, gay, effeminate, queer, homoaffective, and same-gender attracted. Some of these words are specific to women, some to men, and some can be used of either. Gay people may also be identified under the umbrella term LGBT.

The original word base of Esperanto contained around 900 root words and was defined in Unua Libro, published by L. L. Zamenhof in 1887. In 1894, Zamenhof published the first Esperanto dictionary, Universala vortaro, which was written in five languages and supplied a larger set of root words, adding 1740 new words.

In morphology and lexicography, a lemma is the canonical form, dictionary form, or citation form of a set of word forms. In English, for example, break, breaks, broke, broken and breaking are forms of the same lexeme, with break as the lemma by which they are indexed. Lexeme, in this context, refers to the set of all the inflected or alternating forms in the paradigm of a single word, and lemma refers to the particular form that is chosen by convention to represent the lexeme. Lemmas have special significance in highly inflected languages such as Arabic, Turkish, and Russian. The process of determining the lemma for a given lexeme is called lemmatisation. The lemma can be viewed as the chief of the principal parts, although lemmatisation is at least partly arbitrary.

Gracilis, a Latin adjective meaning slender, graceful or gracile, may refer to :

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scape (botany)</span> Long non-woody, leafless segment between two leaf-bearing regions of a plant

In botany, a scape is a peduncle arising from a subterranean or very compressed stem, with the lower internodes very long and hence few or no bracts except the part near the rachis or receptacle. Typically it takes the form of a long, leafless flowering stem rising directly from a bulb, rhizome, or similar subterranean or underwater structure.

A collateral adjective is an adjective that is identified with a particular noun in meaning, but that is not derived from that noun. For example, the word bovine is considered the adjectival equivalent for the noun cattle, but it is derived from a different word, which happens to be the Latin word for "cattle". Similarly, lunar serves as an adjective to describe attributes of the Moon; Moon comes from Old English mōna "moon" and lunar from Latin luna "moon". The adjective thermal and the noun heat have a similar semantic relationship. As in these examples, collateral adjectives in English very often derive from the Latin or Greek translations of the corresponding nouns. In some cases both the noun and the adjective are borrowed, but from different languages, such as the noun air and the adjective aerial. The term "collateral" refers to these two sides of the relationship.

Exoniensis is the Latin adjectival form of Exonia, the Latin name for the city of Exeter in Devon, England. It therefore means "of Exeter".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gracefulness</span>

Gracefulness, or being graceful, is the physical characteristic of displaying "pretty agility", in the form of elegant movement, poise, or balance. The etymological root of grace is the Latin word gratia from gratus, meaning pleasing. Gracefulness has been described by reference to its being aesthetically pleasing. For example:

Gracefulness is an idea not very different from beauty; it consists of much the same things. Gracefulness is an idea belonging to posture and motion. In both these, to be graceful, it is requisite that there be no appearance of difficulty; there is required a small inflection of the body; and a composure of the parts in such a manner, as not to encumber each other, not to appear divided by sharp and sudden angles. In this ease, this roundness, this delicacy of attitude and motion, it is that all the magic of grace consists, and what is called its je ne sais quoi; as will be obvious to any observer, who considers attentively the Venus de Medicis, the Antinous, or any statue generally allowed to be graceful in an high degree.

References

  1. Gray, Mason D.; Jenkins, Thornton, eds. (1934). "gracile". Latin for Today, Book 2. Ginn and Co., Ltd.
  2. Simpson, D. P., ed. (1977). "gracile" . Cassell's Latin Dictionary: Latin-English, English-Latin. London: Cassell. ISBN   0-02-522580-4.
  3. Jackson, Benjamin Daydon (1928). "gracile". A Glossary of Botanic Terms with their Derivation and Accent (4th ed.). London: Gerald Duckworth & Co. W.C.2
  4. Crozier, Arthur Alger (1893). "gracile". A Dictionary of Botanical Terms. Henry Holt & Co.
  5. 1 2 3 Little, William; Fowler, H.W.; Coulson, J.; Onions, C.T., eds. (1968). "gracile". Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principals. Oxford at the Clarendon Press.
  6. "Glossary of Physical Anthropology Terms".
  7. "Glossary of Physical Anthropology Terms".