This word has no provable etymology. We may reasonably impute from the history
of its use a basic meaning, as the OED puts it, 'a component unit of a series'.
There has been since Roman times the fanciful etymology that in the Phoenician,
Greek and Etruscan alphabets the longest run of letters common to all three is
the sequence L-M-N; that is, the largest component unit of the alphabetical
series is the L-M-N-tum, or 'elementum'.
Best wishes to all for the New Year.
Walter
"Costello, Roger L." wrote:
> Hi Folks,
>
> This is a book element:
>
> <book>...</book>
>
> Why "element"?
>
> Who decided to call it element?
>
> When was the term first used?
>
> There is the Periodic Table of elements. Is that where the term comes from?
>
> In hindsight, is there a better term?
