zygostatical
Nov. 11th, 2011 07:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prettygoodwordzygostatical (zeye-goh-STAT-i-cuhl) - adj., pertaining to a market clerk who oversees weights.
That is, pertaining to a zygostat, which Wiktionary also includes in its list of dictionry-only words, though they claim that one they've found one non-dictionary citation. But from that, we get the origin of Latin zygostates, from Greek zugostatēs, the market official in charge of the official weights, against which all merchant weights had to be compared to make sure they were not shorting their customers as they measured out goods or payment. "His zygostatical training allowed him to cheat the scales undetected for decades."
And that wraps up this week of lost words -- back next week with the usual mix.
---L.
That is, pertaining to a zygostat, which Wiktionary also includes in its list of dictionry-only words, though they claim that one they've found one non-dictionary citation. But from that, we get the origin of Latin zygostates, from Greek zugostatēs, the market official in charge of the official weights, against which all merchant weights had to be compared to make sure they were not shorting their customers as they measured out goods or payment. "His zygostatical training allowed him to cheat the scales undetected for decades."
And that wraps up this week of lost words -- back next week with the usual mix.
---L.
