late 17th century (denoting the Arabic or decimal notation of numbers): variant (influenced by Greek arithmos ‘number’) of Middle English algorism, via Old French from medieval Latin algorismus . The Arabic source, al-Ḵwārizmī ‘the man of Ḵwārizm’ (now Khiva), was a name given to the 9th-century mathematician Abū Ja‘far Muhammad ibn Mūsa, author of widely translated works on algebra and arithmetic.