The Many Variations of Multiple

Hello,

This week’s word is multiple, another word suggested by Academy Books’ Teen Book Club members. I suspected the history of this one might be mundane, but the sheer variety of uses has proven intriguing. I’m really enjoying writing up words suggested by other readers as it’s making me explore words I wouldn’t normally investigate.

Multiple isn’t the same as multiply, by the way, but I couldn’t think of another way to illustrate this week’s word. Multiple is something which involves many parts or more than one thing or individual. Your pencil case may contain multiple pens and pencils, for example. The word has been with us since the mid 1600s and was borrowed by English from the same word in French. French had taken it from Latin multiplus (manifold) which is formed from multi (many) and plus (fold).

The link to mathematics is there almost from the start, however as by the 1680s you could discuss “a number produced by multiplying another by a whole number” as being a multiple. I learned the same thing in the 1980s, three centuries later! Other uses of multiple in phrases are scattered through the centuries as it has proven to be a handy word in multiple fields (pun intended).

By 1877 the disease multiple sclerosis had been thus named because it occurs in many patches. By 1886 early psychology had defined multiple personality issues. By 1915, moving from medicine to education we find the introduction of multiple choice tests.

Multi itself has proven to be equally useful in language. It comes from Latin’s multus (much, many) combined with the root word mel (strong, great, numerous) so it’s pretty definitive about being numerous. It was used in several compound Latin words long before it contributed to more recent English compounds such as multinational, multilingual, multi-storey etc.

I think the Latin multi compound words are more fun though – multianimis (much courageous), multibibus (much drinking), multiloquus (talkative), and multicomus (having much hair). In my opinion all four of those need to make a comeback. What do you think?

Until next time, happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. I completed my CampNaNoWriMo challenge on the 30th of April with a grand total of 30,106 words. Pretty happy with that!