Saturday, July 19, 2008

primary secondary tertiary quaternary quinary senary septenary octonary nonary denary duodenary vigenary quartenary

In University Chemistry, we always talked about primary carbons and secondary carbons and tertiary carbons. Then there were quaternary carbons, that I'd never heard of. I always wondered what came after quartenary? So, I looked it up and found this:


What comes after primary, secondary, tertiary?


The sequence continues with quaternary, quinary, senary, septenary, octonary, nonary, denary. Words also exist for `twelfth order' (duodenary) and `twentieth order' (vigenary).


Quinary and senary? Good to know. I think I'll start using that.

1 comment:

Sherpa said...

Sort of like blades on disposable razors. We grew up with primary and secondary blades. Then along came tertiary and quartenary blades. I just wonder how much farther they can push things before someone gets hurt.