Augrym

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An archaic term for arithmetic carried out using the Hindu-Arabic system of numerals and place value
2. An old word for the method of calculating with Arabic numerals in the decimal place-value system
3. Obsolete name for reckoning and computation performed by means of the Arabic decimal numeral system

Etymology: Augrym is an old spelling of "algorism," the name once given to calculating with the ten Hindu-Arabic numerals, and its odd shape comes from a person. The Persian mathematician Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi wrote a treatise on Indian arithmetic, and when it was translated into Latin, his name was rendered as "Algorismus." Readers came to take the name for the method itself, and it became the label for any calculation done in the new positional system. The word passed into Old French as "augrisme" and then into Middle English, where its spelling varied widely. The modern "algorithm" likely arose when writers, associating the word with the Greek "arithmos" (number), altered its form. That spelling survived, while augrym and its variants dropped out of use.