Talk:-adelphous
The following information has failed Wiktionary's deletion process (permalink).
It should not be re-entered without careful consideration.
There are a set of botanical terms referring to stamens (the male/pollen-bearing parts of the flower) being joined together: if they're monadelphous, they're fused into one unit, diadelphous, two units, etc. They're compounds, including prefixes derived from Ancient Greek numbers and some morpheme derived from ἀδελφός (adelphós), which is Ancient Greek for brother.
This entry is based on the premise that those terms are made up of only two parts: the numeric prefix and this suffix.
That premise is wrong: to start with, ἀδελφός (adelphós) is a noun, but all of the compounds are adjectives. This is obviously due to the presence of the adjectival suffix -ous. There's also the matter of a parallel set of nouns: monadelphy, diadelphy etc., which refer to the state of being monadelphous, diadelphous, etc. These are analyzed as the numeral prefixes + the noun adelphy.
So why are the first set based on a prefix and a suffix, while the others are based on a prefix and a free-standing word? The -adelphous entry tries to explain this by saying that adelphous doesn't exist as a free-standing word- but it does exist, we have an entry for it, and the entry's etymology derives it from ἀδελφός (adelphós) + -ous.
I'm not sure whether the correct etymologies are number prefix + ἀδελφός (adelphós) + -ous/-y or number prefix + adelphous/adelphy, but either way, this entry is based on an error and should be deleted. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:46, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
- Delete. My understanding is that adelphous is a back-formation of sorts, so the first possibility in your last sentence is what appears to be the correct one. —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 05:49, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
- Delete or redirect. — Ungoliant (falai) 13:56, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
- Deleted. Feel free to redirect if you see fit. —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 06:32, 23 January 2016 (UTC)