The Hindu-Arabic Numerals c11.116

c11.116

³ “Il y a dix Characteres, autrement Figures, Notes, ou Elements.” [Peletier, edition of 1607, p. 13.] “Numerorum notas alij figuras, alij signa, alij characteres uocant.” [Glareanus, 1545 edition, f. 9, r.] “Per figuras (quas zyphras uocant) assignationem, quales sunt hæ notulæ, 1. 2. 3. 4. . . .” [Noviomagus, *De Numeris Libri II*, cap. vi.] Gemma Frisius also uses *elementa* and Cardan uses *literae*. In the first arithmetic by an American (Greenwood, 1729) the author speaks of “a few Arabian *Charecters* or *Numeral Figures*, called *Digits*” (p. 1), and as late as 1790, in the third edition of J. J. Blassière’s arithmetic (1st ed. 1769), the name *characters* is still in use, both for “de Latynsche en de Arabische” (p. 4), as is also the term “Cyfferletters” (p. 6, n.). *Ziffer*, the modern German form of cipher, was commonly used to designate any of the nine figures, as by Boeschenstein and Riese, although others, like Köbel, used it only for the zero. So *zifre* appears in the arithmetic by Borgo, 1550 ed. In a Munich codex of the twelfth century, attributed to Gerland, they are called *characters* only: “Usque ad VIIII. enim porrigitur omnis numerus et qui supercrescit eisdem designator Karacteribus.” [Boncompagni *Bulletino*, Vol. X, p. 607.]