# uncia
## English
### Etymology

From Latin uncia (“various Roman units”). Doublet of ounce, inch, onça, onza, oka, ouguiya, and awqiyyah.

### Pronunciation

* (General American, Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈʌnʃi.ə/
* Audio (US):(file)

### Noun

uncia (plural uncias or unciae)
* (historical) The Roman ounce, 1/12 of a Roman pound. [1685]
* (historical) The Roman inch, 1/12 of a Roman foot.
* (historical) A bronze coin minted by the Roman Republic, 1/12 of an as.
* (historical) A Roman unit of land area, 1/12 of a jugerum.
* (pharmacy) Synonym of ounce, the English and American avoirdupois unit of mass.
* Synonym of twelfth.
* (algebra, obsolete) A numerical coefficient in a binomial.

## Latin
### Etymology 1

Building upon Varro, most modern Latinists derive this word from ūnicus (“unique”) +‎ -ia, itself from ūnus (“one”) (from Proto-Indo-European *óynos) in the sense of twelfths making up the base unit of various ancient systems of measurement.
Following Heron of Alexandria, Weiss instead postulates a borrowing from Ancient Greek ὀγκία (onkía, “uncia”), from ὄγκος (ónkos, “weight”); he considers the loss of medial /i/ necessitated by the traditional etymology unproblematic but the derivation from "unique" semantically implausible.

#### Pronunciation

* (Classical Latin) IPA: /ˈuːn.ki.a/, [ˈuːŋkiä] or IPA: /ˈun.ki.a/, [ˈʊŋkiä]
* (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA: /ˈun.t͡ʃi.a/, [ˈun̠ʲt͡ʃiä]
It is uncertain whether long or short U occurred in ū̆ncia and in its compounds ending in -ū̆nx, -ū̆ncis. If a connection with ūnus is accepted, that word has long ū and Bennett (1907) thus marks long ū in ūncia, quīncūnx, quīncūnxis. However, originally long vowels could be shortened in Latin before consonant clusters starting in resonant consonants such as [ŋ] (this shortening can be referred to as "Osthoff's Law", which is the name of a similar sound change that occurred in Greek). If Weiss' alternate etymology is accepted, there is no reason to posit a long vowel in this word; in any case, a Latin form ŭncia with a short vowel is represented by French once, Italian oncia, Spanish onza among others.

#### Noun

ū̆ncia f (genitive ū̆nciae); first declension
* (historical) uncia, a coin of the Roman Republic equal to 1/12 as
* (historical) uncia, a unit of length equal to 1/12 of the Roman foot
* inch, similar units in other measurement systems
* (figurative) inch, an insignificantly small length
* (historical) uncia, a unit of mass equal to 1/12 of the Roman pound
* ounce, similar units in other measurement systems
* (figurative) ounce, bit, trifle, an insignificantly small amount
* (historical) uncia, a unit of area equal to 1/12 of the jugerum
* twelfth, 1/12 of any amount or unit

##### Declension

First-declension noun.

##### Derived terms

* terū̆ncius
* deū̆nx
* quincū̆nx
* septū̆nx

##### Descendants

* Italo-Dalmatian:
** Italian: uncia (archaic), oncia
** Sicilian: unza
** Venetan: onsa, onza, onzha, onça
* Rhaeto-Romance:
** Friulian: once
** Romansch: onza, untscha, unza, uonscha
* Northern Gallo-Romance:
** Old French: unce
*** Middle French: once, unce
**** French: once
**** → Middle English: unce, ounce
***** English: ounce
**** → Irish: unsa
*** Norman: onche
*** → Middle Armenian: ունծայ (uncay) (or from another medieval European language)
* Southern Gallo-Romance:
** Catalan: unça
** Occitan: onça
* Ibero-Romance:
** Galician: onza
** Portuguese: onça
** Spanish: onza
Borrowings:
* → Ancient Greek: οὐγγία (oungía), οὐγκία (ounkía), ὀγκία (onkía)
** Greek: ουγγιά (oungiá), ουγκιά (ougkiá)
** → Aramaic:
*** Classical Syriac: ܐܘܢܩܝܐ (ʾūnqīyā), ܢܘܩܝܐ (nūqyā)
**** → Arabic: أوقية (ʔūqiyya) (see there for further descendants)
**** → Old Armenian: նուկի (nuki)
***** Armenian: նուկի (nuki)
*** → Old Armenian: ունկի (unki)
**** → Georgian: უნკი (unḳi)
* → English: uncia
* → Gothic: 𐌿𐌽𐌺𐌾𐌰 (unkja)
* → Old Irish: ungae (see there for further descendants)
* → Polish: uncja
* → Portuguese: úncia
* → Proto-West Germanic: *unciju (see there for further descendants)
* → Romanian: uncie
* → Russian: у́нция (úncija) (see there for further descendants)
* → Spanish: uncia

### Etymology 2

From Middle French once (“lynx, wild cat”) under influence from once (Latin uncia, “ounce”), from false division of Old French lonce (“lynx”) mistaking its initial l for the article l', from Vulgar Latin *luncea possibly via Italian lonza, from Latin lynx, from Ancient Greek λύγξ (lúnx, “lynx”). First used in reference to the snow leopard by Johann Christian Daniel von Schreber in 1777 as Felis uncia.

#### Noun

uncia f (genitive unciae); first declension
* (New Latin) snow leopard

##### Declension

First-declension noun.

##### Descendants

* Translingual: Uncia

### References

* ↑ Weiss, Michael (2023 October 24) “Latin uncia à la Heron”, in Albio Cesare Cassio, Sara Kaczko, editors, Alloglо̄ssoi: Multilingualism and Minority Languages in Ancient Europe (Trends in Classics – Greek and Latin Linguistics; 2), De Gruyter, →DOI, →ISBN, pages 299-311
* ↑ Charles E. Bennett (1907) “Hidden Quantity”, in The Latin Language – a historical outline of its sounds, inflections, and syntax, Boston: Allyn and Bacon, page 49
* ↑ Sayeed, Ollie (01 Jan 2017) "Osthoff’s Law in Latin", in Indo-European Linguistics, Volume 5, Issue 1, page 156
* ↑ Sihler, Andrew L. (1995) New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin, page 78

### Further reading

* “uncia”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
* “uncia”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
* uncia in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
* “uncia”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
* “uncia”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin
* Ačaṙean, Hračʻeay (1977) “ունկի”, in Hayerēn armatakan baṙaran [Armenian Etymological Dictionary] (in Armenian), 2nd edition, a reprint of the original 1926–1935 seven-volume edition, volume III, Yerevan: University Press, page 603a