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abacus
The abacus (''plural'' abaci or abacuses), also called a counting frame, is a calculating tool that was in use centuries before the adoption of the written modern numeral system and is still widely used by merchants, traders and clerks in Asia, Africa, and elsewhere. Today, abaci are often constructed as a bamboo frame with beads sliding on wires, but originally they were beans or stones moved in grooves in sand or on tablets of wood, stone, or metal. The user of an abacus is called an ''abacist''.
==Etymology==
The use of the word ''abacus'' dates before 1387 AD, when a Middle English work borrowed the word from Latin to describe a sandboard abacus. The Latin word came from Greek ἄβαξ ''abax'' which means something without base, and improperly, any piece of rectangular board or plank.
Alternatively, without reference to ancient texts on etymology, it has been suggested that it means "a square tablet strewn with dust", or "drawing-board covered with dust (for the use of mathematics)" (the exact shape of the Latin perhaps reflects the genitive form of the Greek word, ἄβακoς ''abakos''). Whereas the table strewn with dust definition is popular, there are those that do not place credence in this at all and in fact state that it is not proven. Greek ἄβαξ itself is probably a borrowing of a Northwest Semitic, perhaps Phoenician, word akin to Hebrew ''ʾābāq'' (אבק), "dust" (or in post-Biblical sense meaning "sand used as a writing surface"). The preferred plural of ''abacus'' is a subject of disagreement, with both ''abacuses'' and ''abaci''〔 in use.
抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』
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