▪ I. innumerate, a. and n.
(ɪˈnjuːmərət)
[f. in-3 + numerate a.]
A. adj. Unacquainted with the basic principles and ideas of mathematics and science.
| 1959 15 to 18: Rep. Cent. Advisory Council for Educ. (Eng.) (Ministry of Educ.) I. xxv. 270 When we say that a historian or a linguist is ‘innumerate’ we mean that he cannot even begin to understand what scientists and mathematicians are talking about. 1967 Times Rev. Industry June 108/3 ‘Why are so many of us innumerate?’ asked Lord Annan... The answer..was quite simple. For years, girls and boys have given up maths at 15 or 16, thus maiming themselves intellectually. 1969 Physics Bull. Sept. 383/2 In this short book, intended for the general reader (though not for the innumerate one), a distinguished engineer describes how computers work. 1971 Daily Tel. 13 Oct. 2/7 It alleges that one student in every four entering colleges has had no sixth form experience, and that up to one-fifth are ‘practically innumerate’. |
B. n. One who is innumerate; freq. (with the) in pl. sense.
| 1971 Daily Tel. 1 Feb. 15 The old gibe that ‘you can prove anything with figures’ is perhaps not heard so frequently now. It was the classic defence of the innumerate. 1971 Nature 2 Apr. 306/1 The conflict is between the technological and the humane, and derives from various related sources: first, the fable that educational research can be a science as pure as classical physics..and finally the innumerate's fascination with statistics. 1972 Ibid. 10 Mar. 55/1 At the other extreme stand the recalcitrant innumerate, proclaiming themselves the last defenders of humanism. |
▪ II. † iˈnnumerate, † innumeˈration
erroneous ff. enumerate, enumeration.
| 1611 Rich Honest. Age (Percy Soc.) 15 He setteth downe (as it were) by innumeration, so many vanities as for breuities sake I will here omit to speake of. a 1649 A. Leighton in Chandler Hist. Persec. (1736) 371 To innumerate the rest of your Petitioner's heavy Pressures. |