Learn English – Origin of “zero”

etymology

Dictionary.com gave the origin as:

1595–1605; < Italian < Medieval Latin zephirum < Arabic ṣifr cipher

I'm just wondering who coined the actual English term 'zero'? I know that sometime in history there was a man who achieved a mathematical breakthrough, and came up with the idea of 'zero', but who actually coined the word? Can somebody trace its etymology?

Best Answer

More than what was asked, but below is a near-copy of an etymological answer I left on math.SE a while ago, on the etymological origin of the words "zero", "cipher", and "nought". (Sources: Online Etymology Dictionary and Oxford English Dictionary.)

  • zero: circa 1600, (either from Middle Latin zephirum, or French zéro or its source Italian zero, for *zefiro) in any case from Arabic sifr "cipher", itself a translation of Sanskrit śūnya "empty place, desert, naught".

  • cipher: late 14th century, from Arabic sifr, "zero", literally "empty, nothing", from safara "to be empty", loan-translation of Sanskrit śūnya "empty". The word "cipher" came to Europe with Arabic numerals. Originally meant "zero", then "any numeral", then (c. 1520s) "coded message". OED: "The Arabic was simply a translation of the Sanskrit name śūnya, literally ‘empty’."

  • nought: variant of naught which means "nothing". The meaning of "zero, cipher" is only from the early 15th century. (?c1425 Crafte Nombrynge in R. Steele The Earliest Arithmetics in English. (1922) 20: "A 0 is noȝt, And twyes noȝt is but noȝt.")

So these sources seem to agree that:

  • In Sanskrit, the word for "empty" (śūnya) was used for zero.
  • Correspondingly when translating into Arabic, the word sifr based on the word safara, meaning "to be empty", was used for zero.
  • For the number in English, cipher and zero were imported from Arabic, but also, similar to the passing from Sanskrit to Arabic, the existing word for "nothing" (nought) was used.
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