Editing Abscissa and ordinate (section)

== Etymology ==
Though the word "abscissa" ({{ety|la|linea abscissa|a line cut off}}) has been used at least since ''De Practica Geometrie'' (1220) by [[Fibonacci]] (Leonardo of Pisa), its use in its modern sense may be due to Venetian mathematician [[Stefano degli Angeli]] in his work ''Miscellaneum Hyperbolicum, et Parabolicum'' (1659).<ref>{{cite web |title =On the Word "Abscissa" |website =numberwarrior.wordpress.com |last=Dyer |first=Jason |publisher = The number Warrior |date = March 8, 2009 |url = https://numberwarrior.wordpress.com/2009/03/08/on-the-word-abscissa/ |access-date = September 10, 2015 }}</ref> Historically, the term was used in the more general sense of a 'distance'.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Miller |first=Jeff |date=June 24, 2017 |title=Earliest Known Uses of Some of the Words of Mathematics |url=https://jeff560.tripod.com/a.html |access-date=2025-01-06 |website=MacTutor |publisher=University of St. Andrews, Scotland}}</ref>

In his 1892 work ''{{lang|de|Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Mathematik}}'' ("''Lectures on history of mathematics''"), volume 2, German [[history of mathematics|historian of mathematics]] [[Moritz Cantor]] writes:

<blockquote>{{lang|de|italic=yes|Gleichwohl ist durch [Stefano degli Angeli] vermuthlich ein Wort in den mathematischen Sprachschatz eingeführt worden, welches gerade in der analytischen Geometrie sich als zukunftsreich bewährt hat. […] Wir kennen keine ältere Benutzung des Wortes {{lang|de|italic=no|Abscisse}} in lateinischen Originalschriften. Vielleicht kommt das Wort in Uebersetzungen der [[Apollonius of Perga|Apollonischen Kegelschnitte]] vor, wo Buch I Satz 20 von {{lang|grc|italic=no|ἀποτεμνομέναις}} die Rede ist, wofür es kaum ein entsprechenderes lateinisches Wort als {{lang|la|italic=no|abscissa}} geben möchte.}}<ref>{{cite book |title=Vorlesungen über Geschichte der Mathematik |volume=2 |edition=2nd |lang=de |last=Cantor |first=Moritz |year=1900 |publisher=B.G. Teubner |location= Leipzig |page=898 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LejuAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Miscellaneum+Hyperbolicum%2C+et+Parabolicum.%22+%22abscissa%22&pg=PA898 |access-date=10 September 2015}}</ref><br/>
At the same time it was presumably by [Stefano degli Angeli] that a word was introduced into the mathematical vocabulary for which especially in analytic geometry the future proved to have much in store. […] We know of no earlier use of the word ''abscissa'' in Latin original texts. Maybe the word appears in translations of the [[Apollonius of Perga|Apollonian conics]], where [in] Book I, Chapter 20 there is mention of ''ἀποτεμνομέναις,'' for which there would hardly be a more appropriate Latin word than {{lang|la|abscissa}}.
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The use of the word ''ordinate'' is related to the Latin phrase ''linea ordinata appliicata'' 'line applied parallel'.