Combinacioun

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A joining together of separate parts or elements so that they form a single unified whole
2. The uniting of distinct things into one mixed body or arrangement, as used in older English
3. An archaic term for the blending or pairing of several things into a single united thing

Etymology: Its roots describe pairing: Latin "combinare" meant "to join two by two," built from "com-" ("together") and "bini" ("two each"). The idea of matching things in twos stayed close to the word's core, so a combination was originally a joining of pairs before it came to mean any arrangement of parts. "Combinacioun" is the Middle English spelling of the modern "combination." It came into English through Old French "combinaison," which was itself borrowed from Latin "combinatio," a noun formed from "combinare." English gradually regularized the spelling to its current form, and the word's broader sense of any set of items brought together, including a lock's sequence of numbers, developed from that original pairing.

Synonyms: combination, union, mixture

Antonyms: separation, division