Pl. lemmas, ǁ lemmata. [a. (either directly or through Lat.) Gr. λῆμμα, pl. λήμματα (f. root of λαμβάνειν to take, pf. pass. εἴλημμαι) something received or taken; something taken for granted; an argument, title. Cf. F. lemme.]
1. Math., etc. A proposition assumed or demonstrated which is subsidiary to some other. See also quot. 1837–8.
1570. Billingsley, Euclid, II. xxxiii. 347. The Mathematicall occasion, whereby … Hippocrates … was led to the former Lemma.
1656. Hobbes, Six Less., Wks. 1845, VII. 209. The sixth definition is but a lemma.
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., I. iv. § 3. 194. We must first lay down this lemma or preparatory proposition.
1748. Phil. Trans., XLV. 367. From these Lemmata … are deduced the following Propositions.
1822. Whately, Commpl. Bk. (1864), 73. I lay down, then, these Lemmas: 1st [etc.].
1837–8. Sir W. Hamilton, Logic, xiv. (1866), I. 267. Lemmata, that is, propositions borrowed from another science in order to serve as subsidiary propositions in the science of which we treat.
1845. De Quincey, Hazlitt, Wks. 1862, XI. 299. Whatever is—so much I conceive to have been a fundamental lemma for Hazlitt—is wrong.
1885. Leudesdorf, Cremona’s Proj. Geom., 189. The foregoing lemma.
2. a. The argument or subject of a literary composition, prefixed as a heading or title; also, a motto appended to a picture, etc. b. The heading or theme of a scholium, annotation or gloss.
1616. B. Jonson, Poetaster, To Rdr. I will onely speake An Epigramme I here haue made: It is Vnto true Souldiers. That ’s the lemma. Marke it.
1623. Cockeram, Lemma, an argument.
1660. trans. Amyraldus’ Treat. conc. Relig., Pref. 9. The Discourses seem to divert a little from the subject which the Lemma’s of the Chapters promise.
1679. T. Barlow, Popery, 25. The lemma or title to that impious extravagant of Pope Boniface the eighth.
1722. Swift, Lett. to Earl Oxford, 11 Oct., Wks. 1765, XVI. 185. I have hitherto taken up with a scurvy print of you, under which I have placed this lemma: Veteres actus primamque [etc.].
1778. Warton, Hist. Eng. Poetry, II. 201, note. In the year 1415, several pageaunts were exhibited … with verses written by Lydgate, on the following lemmata. Ingredimini et replete terram [etc.].
1896. W. G. Rutherford, Schol. Aristoph., I. p. vii. Adequate information about … the lemmas, the spelling, the accentuation [of scholia]. Ibid., p. xxvii. He marks of the lemma from the body of the note in cases in which a lemma is given.
