Thread:User talk:CodeCat/"Certainly not neuter!"

While "|n" was copypasted and while I didn't look for the Latin gender before, "certainly" does not fit here: Well, there could be gender-shifts from Latin into German, but they should largely be restricted to "irregular" or "unusual" words like changing feminine paragraphus into a masculine Paragraphus. But paragraphus was also masculine in New Latin, thus it should be doubtful whether or not there was a gender-shift when the word was adopted into German. In case of trapezoides/Trapezoides there should be no reason to assume that there was a gender-shift. So it's very likely that trapezoides is indeed neuter. The plural however might be somewhat doubtful: "trapezoidea" can be found in earlier New Latin (1500-1650), while "trapezoida" can be found in German (18th century). As educated Germans back then learned Latin and wrote and read in Latin, it's likely that the authors would have also used trapezoida and not trapezoidea in a Latin text. But well, it does not attest the Latin plural trapezoida.
 * Different (New) Latin authors could have used different genders. Thus a masculine or feminine example, does not proof that trapezoides never was neuter.
 * I've onced read that words in -oides have the gender of the original word, e.g. *asteroides would be masculine as the Greek word ἀστήρ astḗr is masculine. It wasn't a reliable source and I haven't checked this statement, but it could be correct. If it is, trapezoides would be neuter as trapezium and the original Greek word are neuter.
 * Latin trapezium and German Trapez, Trapezium, Trapezion, Trapezoid and Trapezoides are neuter, and Trapezoides was declined like a Latin word (genitive Trapezoidis, dative Trapezoidi, ablative Trapezoide etc.). For Trapezoides one can also find the neuter plural "Trapezoida" (1786: "die Trapezoida", "gleich große Trapezoida", "drey Trapezoida"; 1733: "in Trapezia und Trapezoida").
 * books.google.com/books?id=WZE3ms9681cC&pg=PT23 (1560) has "Trapezia, & Trapezoidea Euclides communi nomine Trapezia vocauit". That should say that Euclid used the single term trapezium for both trapezium and trapezoid, and trapezoidea should be a neuter plural, see -ειδής. books.google.com/books?id=3Tp96ebQX-sC&pg=PR33 (1619) also has the plural trapezoidea and writes "..., & trapezoidea omnia communi nomine appellauit trapezia ..." which could proof neuter gender (omnia, inflected form of omnis). books.google.com/books?id=NLhRAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA13 (1871) has a Greek and a Latin text and uses trapezoidea in Latin too.

PS: One can also find trapezoidem and Trapezoidem (acc. sg.), e.g. "Trapezoidem in [picture of a triangle or a big delta] convertere." and "des Trapezoidis [...] den Trapezoidem". In German it's masculine, and I'd guess it's masculine in Latin too. But as stated before, this does not proof that the word was never neuter. -80.133.101.204 04:30, 24 August 2016 (UTC)