Gracility
Gracility is slenderness, the condition of being gracile, which means slender. It derives from the Latin adjective gracilis (masculine or feminine), or gracile (neuter),[1] which in either form means slender, and when transferred for example to discourse takes the sense of "without ornament", "simple" or various similar connotations.[2]
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In his famous Glossary of Botanic Terms, B. D. Jackson speaks dismissively[3] of an entry in earlier dictionary of A. A. Crozier[4] as follows: Gracilis (Lat.), slender. Crozier has the needless word "gracile". However, his objection would be hard to sustain in current usage; apart from the fact that "gracile" is a natural and convenient term, it is hardly a neologism; the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary[5] gives the source date for that usage as 1623.
In the same entry for Gracile, the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary remarks: Recently misused (through association with grace) for Gracefully slender. This misuse is unfortunate at least, because the terms gracile and grace are completely unrelated: the etymological root of grace is the Latin word gratia from gratus, meaning pleasing[5] and nothing to do with slenderness or thinness.
In biology
In biology, the term is in common use, whether as English or Latin:
- The term gracile—and its opposite, robust—occur in discussion of the morphology of various hominids for example.
- The gracile fasciculus is a particular bundle of axon fibres in the spinal cord
- The gracile nucleus is a particular structure of neurons in the medulla oblongata
- "GRACILE syndrome", is associated with a BCS1L mutation
In biological taxonomy, gracile is the specific name or specific epithet for various species. Where the gender is appropriate, the form is gracilis. Examples include:
- Campylobacter gracilis, a species of bacterium implicated in foodborne disease
- Ctenochasma gracile, a late Jurassic pterosaur
- Eriophorum gracile, a species of sedge, Cyperaceae
- Euglena gracilis, a unicellular flagellate protist
- Hydrophis gracilis, a species of sea snakes
- Melampodium gracile, a flowering plant species
- Moeritherium gracile, an Eocene mammal species
The same root appears in the names of some genera and higher taxa:
- Gracilaria is a genus of red algae in the order Gracilariales
- Gracillaria is a genus of leaf miner moths in the superfamily Gracillarioidea
See also
- Buckling, for the slenderness ratio in engineering
- Grace (disambiguation)
- Gracilis (disambiguation), a Latin adjective in several species names – as remarked above, the meanings are the same as for gracile, except for their grammatical gender
- Robustness (morphology)
References
- Gray, Mason D., Jenkins, Thornton; “Latin for Today, Book 2”; Pub: Ginn and Co., Ltd. (1934)
- Simpson, D. G. (1977). Cassell's Latin dictionary: Latin-English, English-Latin. London: Cassell. ISBN 0-02-522580-4.
- Jackson, Benjamin Daydon; "A Glossary of Botanic Terms with their Derivation and Accent" 4th Ed. 1928; Pub: Gerald Duckworth & Co. London, W.C.2
- Crozier, Arthur Alger; “A Dictionary of Botanical Terms”, Pub.: Henry Holt & Co 1893.
- Little, William; Fowler H.W.; Coulson J.; Onions, C.T. (Ed.): "Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principals". Pub.: Oxford at the Clarendon Press (1968).