Monogram initials interwoven into a device
Digram - [digraph: 2 letters standing for 1 sound]
Trigram group of 3 letters
Tetragram word of 4 letters
Pentagram 5-pointed star
Hexagram 6-sided figure
Heptagram -
Octagram - [octet: group of 8 (instruments)]
Enneagram - [ennead: group of nine]
Decagram 10 g (about .3527 ounces)
Hectogram 100 g (about 3.527 ounces)
Kilogram 1000 g (tenth of a metric tonne).
As a confirmed philhellene in such matters, & someone
who has actually used the word "tetragram" in print,
this disjointed series rather disappointed me.
Perhaps as grammarians we should recognize that we
are giving the Greek root "gram" rather too heavy
a semantic load to carry!
So, on reflection, I would recommend saying Good-Bi
to "bigram" & friends and adopting a more neutral
(& shorter) terminology:
Monad unit (of being)
Dyad pair
Triad group of 3
Tetrad group of 4
Pentad group of 5
Hexad group of 6
Heptad group of 7
Octad group of 8
Ennead group of 9
....
All the above words already exist in the dictionary with the
meanings given. Context would make clear whether a group
of words or characters or something else was meant.
As for the gap in the above sequence ....
there we find Decade, which does mean a group of 10,
but always 10 years in practice. Here I would resort
to a (nearly) novel coinage, "Dekad" which wouldn't
carry the 10-year connotation.
Well, what do you think, fellow grammarians?
Is this in tune with our "esprit de corpora"?
Richard Forsyth,
UWE Bistol.
PS I'm prepared to offer a small prize --
a tetra-dram in fact --
to anyone who gets as far as analyzing Myriads
(10000s) as repeated linguistic elements.