Etymograph

English

ideal number

Ideal number comes from German ideale Zahl.

  1. Germanc. 1650–presentideale Zahl
  2. Englishtodayideal number

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed

Lineage

  1. Germanc. 1650–presentideale Zahl
  2. Englishtodayideal number

Made of the words ideal + number

Latin idea ‘idea’

Late Latin ideālis ‘existing in idea’

French idéal

English ideal

Proto-Indo-European *nem- ‘to distribute; to give, take’

Proto-Italic *nomezos

Latin numerus ‘number’

Anglo-Norman noumbre

Middle English number

English number

The story

Apparently a calque of German ideale Zahl, a concept in number theory developed by German mathematician Ernst Kummer (1810—1893) and later incorporated by Richard Dedekind into the ring theory concept of ideal.disputed Scholars disagree here; the competing view is quoted as the source gives it.

Every English word from German ideale Zahl

Today it means

noun An algebraic integer that represents an ideal in the ring of integers of a number field.

Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.

Etymograph / German ideale Zahl / ideal number

Shirt and support for this word