New Zealand 5

Setting up this photo got me thinking about numbers and prefixes (接頭語), which are a good way to build vocabulary. Let’s start with the number 5, and its prefix, penta, which comes from the Greek word for 5, pente.

Pentagon = a 5-sided figure (五角形), and doubles as the building which houses the highest levels of the US military and has the shape of, well, a pentagon.

Pentathlon = an Olympic sport in which athletes compete in five different events. (below from Wikipedia) : the ancient Greek Olympic competition consisted of 5 events which were thought to be essential to soldiers at the time – long jump, javelin throw (槍投げ), discus throw (円盤投げ), a foot race, and wrestling.

Pentathlete = ５種競技選手, the person who competes in five events.

Modern Pentathlon was created by Pierre de Courbetin, the Father of the Modern Olympics. Its five events were considered essential to soldiers of the late 19th Century – epee fencing, pistol shooting, swimming, equestrian (horse-riding), and cross-country running (i.e. long-distance running).

In the 1964 Tokyo Olympics a women’s pentathlon event was introduced. The pentathlon was replaced by the heptathlon (7 events, another prefix, hepta = 7) in the 1984 Olympics.

My dictionary has a seemingly endless list of arcane penta- words, most of them seldom if ever used outside the confines of science.

Another prefix related to the number 5 is quint, but we’ll have to save that for another post.

By the way, do you know how say ヒトデ or 海星 in English?