Also 6 algeber, algiebar. [a. It. algèbra (also Sp. and med.L.), ad. Arab. al-jebr the redintegration or reunion of broken parts, f. jabara to reunite, redintegrate, consolidate, restore; hence, the surgical treatment of fractures, bone-setting. Also in phr. silm al-jebr wa’l-muqābalah, i.e., ‘the science of redintegration and equation (opposition, comparison, collation),’ the Arabic name for algebraic computation. In this sense the first part of the Arabic title was taken into It. in 1202, as algèbra; the second part, almucābala, was used by some med.L. writers in the same sense. The 16th c. Eng. algeber (fancifully identified by early writers with the name of the Arabic chemist Geber) was either taken directly from Arab. or from Fr. algèbre; but the It. algèbra became the accepted form (accented a·lgebra by 1663).]
† 1. The surgical treatment of fractures; bone-setting. (A popular sense which probably survived from the Arabs in Spain; still in Sp.) Obs.
1541. R. Copland, Guydon’s Formul., X iij. The helpes of Algebra & of dislocations.
1565. J. Halle, Hist. Expost., 19. This Araby worde Algebra sygnifyeth as well fractures of bones, etc. as sometyme the restauration of the same.
[1598. Florio, Algebra [It.] the arte of bone-setting.
1623. Minsheu, Algébra [Sp.] bone-setting. Algebrísta, a bone-setter.]
2. The department of mathematics that investigates the relations and properties of numbers by means of general symbols; and, in a more abstract sense, a calculus of symbols combining according to certain defined laws.
‘Hence various algebras: as commutative algebra, in which the symbols obey the law of commutation; linear algebra, in which the symbols are linearly connected; quadruple algebra, or quaternions; and the algebra of logic, in which the symbols represent not numbers or quantities, but other objects of thought, as classes or qualities of things, or statements concerning things.’ R. Harley, F.R.S.
1551. Recorde, Pathw. Knowl., II. Pref. Also the rule of false position, with dyuers examples not onely vulgar, but some appertaynyng to the rule of Algeber. Ibid. (1557), Whetst., E iv. This Rule is called the Rule of Algeber, after the name of the inuentoure, as some men think … But of his vse it is rightly called the rule of equation.
1570. Billingsley, Eucl., X. Introd. 229. That more secret and subtill part of Arithmetike, commonly called Algebra.
1570. Dee, Math. Præf., 6. The very name is Algiebar, and not Algebra: as by the Arabien Auicen, may be proued.
1579. Digges, Stratiot., 70. Farther to wade in the large sea of Algebra and numbers cossical. Ibid., 55. This Art of Algebra or Rule of Cosse as the Italians terme it.
1610. B. Jonson, Alchem., I. i. (1616), 607. Your alchemy, and your algebra.
1621. Burton, Anat. Mel., Democr. (1657), 45. Geber, that first inventer of Algebra.
1658. Phillips, Algebra, or the Analytical Art.
1663. Butler, Hud., I. i. 126. And wisely tell what hour o’ th’ day The clock does strike, by Algebra.
1775. Burke, Sp. Conc. Amer., Wks. III. 33. A proportion beyond all the powers of algebra to equalise and settle.
1781. Cowper, Convers., 22. And if it weigh the importance of a fly, The scales are false, or algebra a lie.
1837. Hallam, Hist. Lit. (1847), I. 238. [In Italian] co or cosa stands for the unknown quantity; whence algebra was sometimes called the cossic art.
1849. De Morgan, Trigonometry & Double Algebra, II. i. 98, note. Algebra, al jebr e al mokābala, restoration and reduction, got its Arabic name, I have no doubt, from the restoration of the term which completes the square, and reduction of the equation by extracting the square root. The solution of a quadratic equation was the most prominent part of the Arabic algebra.
1860. Motley, Hist. Netherl., III. 102. Passionless as algebra.
