Talk:round

Round for tea

I had my friends round for tea. Is this an abbreviated form of around as in I had my friends 'round for tea or is this some other form of round that is not currently listed? User:80N 10:25, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm. I also think that meaning should be here, or at least a ===Related terms== to 'round or ’round. --Connel MacKenzie 08:34, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

This is a common mistake, often seen from people who strongly prefer around to round. When they hear round, it sounds like an aphaeresis of around, and so they mark it with an apostrophe. But as far as I know, round predates around. It's like till versus until. Look at rundt in Norwegian.

I think that the adverb should be in this article, with around being marked as an alternative form of it, rather than vice versa. Correctrix (talk) 11:53, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

RFV discussion

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Rfv-sense: "Of an angle, measuring 360 degrees". Is this ever used in any form except as the set phrase round angle? --EncycloPetey 03:16, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Not so far as I can tell, no. —Ruakh_TALK 17:04, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

RFV failed, sense removed. —Ruakh_TALK 17:04, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

RFC discussion

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for cleanup.

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round

Sense: (of a number) That has been rounded off or approximated.

One hundred is a nice round number.

I get the point, but this is wrong. It doesn't mean "that has been rounded off" but "that is useful for rounding off to" or something. I think a mathematical definition might be something more like "that has many prime factors that divide the base in which one is computing as compared to its other prime factors", but I have to admit I haven't seen any papers or anything on this: it's a gut feeling. Any suggestions?​—msh210℠ 19:02, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and whatever definition line is decided on for this, can it be added to [[even]] also, please? (See, e.g., [1], [2].)​—msh210℠ 19:04, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Ah, I just discovered (from [3]) that Hardy and Ramanujan called a number round if it has many small prime factors.​—msh210℠ 19:10, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Hunh? That's not a definition I've ever heard used. It may be that there is a colloquial meaning here as well as a technical mathematical sense. When most people talk of "round numbers" or "round figures", they are referring to an estimated or rounded value, usually a single-digit multiple of a power of ten. --EncycloPetey 19:15, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Do they? When I say "100 is a nice, round number" I don't mean that it's an estimate of anything, or a rounded value. I mean that it could be used as an estimate or a rounded value — or something like that. If I meticulously count the people in the room and arrive at 100, I'd still say it's "round". A number is round irrespective of how one arrived at it: by rounding or otherwise. As for the Hardy definition, I have no idea that it's used: just pointing it out.​—msh210℠ 19:19, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Webster's New World Dictionary (College ed.) has three definitions associated with the sense I've described: (10) constituting, or expressed by, a whole number, or integer; not fractional. (11) expressed in tens, hundreds, thousands, etc.: as, 500 is a round number for 498, 503, etc. (12) approximately accurate; rough: as, a round guess. --EncycloPetey 19:25, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

[Wolfram] has Msh210's def, but for a sense of round number. I am not sure that I have ever heard "round" used apart from "number" or a synonym (or hyponym) thereof. MWOnline and Wolfram have similar definitions for the verb. IOW, do we need an entry for round#Adjective in this sense? DCDuring TALK 23:08, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes: "round figure", "round value", "round date", "round estimate", etc. --EncycloPetey 23:12, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I can't find "round date" apart from "calendar round date" or referring to a rounding function in computing. I think of "figure" as being synonymous with "number" and "estimate" and "value" being hyponyms. In addition the hyponyms are not very common. But there are such expressions as a "round percentage", "round offer/bid" that seem to push the limits of hyponymy. DCDuring TALK 00:02, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Note that Wolfram's page on "round number", linked to above by DCDuring, also contains the sentence "A positive integer $n$ is sometimes said to be round (or "square root-smooth") if it has no prime factors greater than ${\sqrt {n}}$.", using round without a following noun. Searching google books:"number is round", while it turns up many hits not of this form, also turns up sufficiently many of this form.​—msh210℠ 17:24, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

I had always assumed that a round number was one that ended in a zero (your actual round number). SemperBlotto 15:13, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Mathematicians often use words in surprising ways. A mathematician who talks of a ball is not talking about any physical object; it is the "open" region bounded within a sphere (where a sphere has no thickness, not even subatomic thickness). This would, more or less, be describable as the space within a football, but excluding the football material itself. The word "open" similarly does not mean what most people would assume it means. Usually such a change in meaning results from taking a word everybody knows and then giving it an exactingly precise definition unique to mathematics. In this instance, what most people mean by a "round" number is not what a number theorist would mean. To them, 10 is not round but 84 is. A statistician, however, would more likely be familiar with the "usual" definition of a number ending in one or more zeroes. --EncycloPetey 15:31, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Date for Twelfth Night quotation

As the directions in Wiktionary:Quotations state "The year should be that of the earliest edition known to use the word", I put 1623 for the Twelfth Night quotation, since that is when the play was first published, rather than putting "1600 or 1601" for its conjectured composition date. This seems a little odd since this is after Shakespeare's death. I welcome further guidance. --Lee Choquette (talk) 19:03, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

Possible missing adjective senses

Chambers 1908 also has:

• smooth-flowing, continuous, as a sound
• full, expressive
• positive
• periodic

Equinox ◑ 20:30, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Adverb 2. throughout or from the beginning to the end of a recurring period of time

Adverb 2. throughout or from the beginning to the end of a recurring period of time: all year round. In American English, around is usually used instead in adverbial and prepositional senses, except in a few fixed phrases such as all year round --Backinstadiums (talk) 09:54, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

I just have to say that I have problems with this...

"The guards have started their rounds; the prisoner should be caught soon." - Hmm, that's an odd sentence. A guard doing his round is making sure the prisoners are still prisoners (if they're a prison guard), not trying to catch someone to make/remake them a prisoner. An escape of someone doesn't prompt a round, but a (hopefully) non-routine search or similar operation. For someone who may indeed have recently been officially a prisoner but is now more properly reclassifiable as an "escaped prisoner". ... Don't know how to easily improve it to make it still useful for the purpose of this page. "The secutury guards have started their rounds; the trespasser may be discovered soon."..? Just thinking out loud (if you count the click-clack of my keyboard, in my own ears only, as audible), don't mind me. 92.5.178.92 16:21, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

 Done I have changed it. Equinox ◑ 08:25, 15 August 2022 (UTC)