Zenzizenzizenzic

The zenzizenzizenzic of a number is its eighth power. This term was suggested by Robert Recorde, a 16th century Welsh writer of popular mathematics textbooks, in his work "The Whetstone of Witte", published in 1557, although his spelling was "zenzizenzizenzike".

The word is obsolete except as a curiosity; the Oxford English Dictionary has only one citation for it. It survives as a historical oddity.

The word dates from a time when there was no easy way of denoting the powers of numbers other than squares and cubes. Its root word is the German zenzic, from the medieval Italian "censo", meaning "squared." Since the square of a square of a number is its fourth power, Recorde used the word zenzizenzic (spelt by him as "zenzizenzike") to express it. This is a condensed form of the Italian "censo di censo", used by Leonardo of Pisa in his famous book "Liber Abaci" of 1202. Similarly, as the sixth power of a number is equal to the square of its cube, Recorde used the word "zenzicubike" (a more modern spelling, zenzicube, is found in Samuel Jeake's "Logisticelogia") to express it. Finally, the word "zenzizenzizenzic" denotes the square of the square of a number's square, which is its eighth power.

"Zenzizenzizenzic" has more Zs than any other word in the English language.Fact|date=October 2008

External links

* [http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-zen1.htm Entry at Weird Words]