quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- dyne (n.)
- metric unit of force, 1873, from German use of Greek dynamis "power" (see dynamic (adj.)); perhaps also influenced by French dyne, which had been proposed c. 1842 as a unit of force in a different sense.
- gram (n.)
- also gramme, metric unit of weight, 1797, from French gramme (18c.), from Late Latin gramma "small weight," from Greek gramma "small weight," a special use of the classical word meaning "a letter of the alphabet" (see -gram). Adopted into English about two years before it was established in France as a unit in the metric system by law of 19 frimaire, year VIII (1799). "There seems to be no possible objection to adopting the more convenient shorter form, except that the -me records the unimportant fact that the word came to us through French" [Fowler].
- milli-
- word-forming element meaning "thousandth part of a metric unit," from comb. form of Latin mille "thousand" (see million).