numeracy

English

Etymology

From numerate +‎ -acy, from Latin numerus; coined with numerate in 1959 by the UK Committee on Education, presided over by Sir Geoffrey Crowther.[1][2]

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA(key): /ˈnjuːməɹəsi/

Noun

numeracy (countable and uncountable, plural numeracies)

  1. Numerical skill.
    Antonyms: innumeracy, dyscalculia
    Hypernym: competence
    Coordinate term: literacy
    1. Competence with mathematics and with how to apply it to practical applications; sufficient ability to think critically in a quantitative way.
      John Allen Paulos and others have asked our society to consider numeracy and innumeracy in a way closer to how we view literacy and illiteracy.
      Numeracy includes such things as comprehending intuitively that a mean can sometimes be vastly different from a median and thus does not always represent a typical specimen, even despite being called "average".
    2. Ability to manipulate numbers at all, even for the simplest of arithmetic, such as adding two and two.
      The man lost all numeracy when he had a stroke, so he now depended on his wife for even the simplest financial matters, such as making change or paying a cashier.

Translations

References

  1. ^ Fowler's Modern English Usage, R.W. Burchfield, ed.
  2. ^ “numeracy, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
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