The word sesquicentennial means "150th anniversary". When I first found this out, I thought about the prefix sesqui- and what it could mean.
My first thought was that it meant 6/4 = 1.5, because it seemed that the syllables matched up with "six" and "quart". After deciding that that must be right, I decided to check online. To my surprise, it appears that the prefix literally means "half and".
Was my first revelation a complete coincidence or is there actually a legitimate reason for what I noticed?
Best Answer
Well, according to Lewis and Short's "A Latin Dictionary", the derivation is actually:
so I'd be inclined to think "coincidence". From such things are folk etymologies made.