terminology

General term for something real as opposed to digital/virtual?

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I’m looking for a term that encompasses physical objects, people, processes. Basically everything from the real world as opposed to the digital. I have considered entity, but I am not sure, whether it fits the bill. Also I would need an attribute to differentiate it from digital things like software. My context is general modelling. … Read more

When was “untactful” first used?

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I came across “untactful” in a story and wondered when it was first used and how it came to be commonly used in speech. I’ve always used “tactless”. I checked a lot of dictionaries with no results. I searched for “origins of untactful” and “etymology of untactful” with no results. I had no trouble finding … Read more

“Dasometry”: is this a common word in English? Is there more common alternative?

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I am looking for a word that groups all measurements done in the trees or forest, like Tree height, Diameter at breast height, Basal Area, Volume, crown diameter, etc. In Spanish we have the word “Dasometria” for that, and in English I only found the word “dasometry” in research papers written by Spanish or Portuguese … Read more

what’s the scientific term for “natural” in “natural blonde”

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Jim Rogers (a famous investor) is very enamored with the natural blondeness of his current (third) wife. See here: and here: I once came across an interview of his where he described her as a “something blonde”. I had to look up something in the dictionary and it referred to genetics related to blondeness, and … Read more

What do you call the sentence structure of “The X-er __, the Y-er __”?

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Is there a term for a sentence in the form of “The ___, the ___”? For example: The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear. Further, is this a proper sentence? Is there an implied verb? Answer Comparative Correlatives Constructions like “The bigger they are, the harder they fall” are called comparative … Read more

Is there a term for ordering items by color by wave length?

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I tried looking for the word “chromologically”, but didn’t find any evidence to its existence. Further answers about sorting not by wave length, but by other factors, such as saturation, or brightness, are also welcome. Answer Since there any many ways to order color, there’s no specific name for “sorting by color”. See: The incredibly … Read more

What is a two-letter language identifier called?

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A list of languages might look like so: English (en) French (fr) German (de) What are the two-letter identifiers in brackets called? Answer Specifically, these are ISO 639-1 Codes (from the International Organization for Standardization). There is also a similar system but with three letters known as the ISO 639-2. AttributionSource : Link , Question … Read more

What is the sound/audio equivalent of “unsightly”?

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The title pretty much says it all: what is the English equivalent (if such exists) for “unsightly” when applied to sound? “Ill-sounding” isn’t as succinct and brings to mind the actual sounds of illness. “Cacophonous” isn’t as succinct and frankly requires knowing the word before understanding it. Unaural or disaural aren’t words, and require knowing … Read more