A Word A Day — decussate

with Anu Garg

We may think only mathematicians or economists or auditors have to deal with numbers, but numbers are everywhere. They’re in beautiful patterns, they are in the spiral of a mollusk, in the arrangement of seeds in a sunflower, and beyond.

Though it may not be obvious at first glance, all of this week’s words have their origins in numbers.

decussate

(verb: di-KUHS-ayt, DEK-uh-sayt, adjective: di-KUHS-ayt, -it)

verb tr.:
To intersect or to cross.

adjective:
1. Intersected or crossed in the form of an X.
2. Arranged in pairs along the stem, each pair at a right angle to the one above or below.

The word originated from Latin “as” (plural asses) which was a copper coin and the monetary unit in ancient Rome. The word for ten asses was decussis, from Latin decem (ten) + as (coin). Since ten is represented by X, this spawned the verb decussare, meaning to divide in the form of an X or intersect.

Samuel Johnson, lexicographer extraordinaire, has a well-deserved reputation for his magnum opus “A Dictionary of the English Language”, but as they say, even Homer nods. He violated one of the dictums of lexicography — do not define a word using harder words than the one being defined — when he used today’s word and two other uncommon words in defining the word network: And what is “reticulated”? Again, according to Johnson:
“How I wished then that my body, too, if it had to droop and shrivel, for surely everyone’s did, would furl and decussate with grace to sculpt the victory of my spirit.”
J. Nozipo Maraire; Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter; Delta; 1997.

Life’s most urgent question is: what are you doing for others? -Martin Luther King, Jr , civil-rights leader (1929-1968)