- gram
[gram 词源字典] - gram: [18] Gram, or gramme as it is sometimes spelled, was borrowed at the end of the 18th century from French gramme, the term adopted in 1799 as the basic unit of weight in the metric system. The word itself goes back via late Latin gramma ‘small unit’ to Greek grámma (source of English grammar), which originally meant ‘letter of the alphabet’ but later came to be used for ‘small weight’.
=> grammar[gram etymology, gram origin, 英语词源] - gram (n.)
- also gramme, metric unit of weight, 1797, from French gramme (18c.), from Late Latin gramma "small weight," from Greek gramma "small weight," a special use of the classical word meaning "a letter of the alphabet" (see -gram). Adopted into English about two years before it was established in France as a unit in the metric system by law of 19 frimaire, year VIII (1799). "There seems to be no possible objection to adopting the more convenient shorter form, except that the -me records the unimportant fact that the word came to us through French" [Fowler].
