Etymology
There is a similar word, "holomorphic", that was introduced by two of Cauchy's students, Briot (1817–1882) and Bouquet (1819–1895), and derives from the Greek ὅλος (holos) meaning "entire", and μορφή (morphē) meaning "form" or "appearance". The etymology of "holonomy" shares the first part with "holomorphic" (holos). About the second part:
"It is remarkably hard to find the etymology of holonomic (or holonomy) on the web. I found the following (thanks to John Conway of Princeton): 'I believe it was first used by Poinsot in his analysis of the motion of a rigid body. In this theory, a system is called "holonomic" if, in a certain sense, one can recover global information from local information, so the meaning "entire-law" is quite appropriate. The rolling of a ball on a table is non-holonomic, because one rolling along different paths to the same point can put it into different orientations. However, it is perhaps a bit too simplistic to say that "holonomy" means "entire-law". The "nom" root has many intertwined meanings in Greek, and perhaps more often refers to "counting". It comes from the same Indo-European root as our word "number." ' " —S.Golwala,See νόμος (nomos) and -nomy.
Read more about this topic: Holonomy
Famous quotes containing the word etymology:
“The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.”
—Giambattista Vico (1688–1744)
“Semantically, taste is rich and confusing, its etymology as odd and interesting as that of “style.” But while style—deriving from the stylus or pointed rod which Roman scribes used to make marks on wax tablets—suggests activity, taste is more passive.... Etymologically, the word we use derives from the Old French, meaning touch or feel, a sense that is preserved in the current Italian word for a keyboard, tastiera.”
—Stephen Bayley, British historian, art critic. “Taste: The Story of an Idea,” Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things, Random House (1991)