Today's Word "Incommensurable"
Published in Vocabulary
incommensurable \in-kuh-MEN-suh-ruh-bul\ (adjective) - Not commensurable; broadly : lacking a basis of comparison in respect to a quality normally subject to comparison
"Our anxieties for you and Margaret and my anxieties for the success of my book . . . are two so incommensurable things that they ought not of right to be brought together in one letter." (Robert Frost, Letters)
"Commensurable" means "having a common measure" or "corresponding in size, extent, amount, or degree." Its antonym "incommensurable" generally refers to things that are unlike and incompatible, sharing no common ground (as in "incommensurable theories"), or to things that are very disproportionate, often to the point of defying comparison ("incommensurable crimes"). Both words entered English in the 1500s and were originally used (as they still can be) for numbers that have or don't have a common divisor. They came to English by way of Middle French and Late Latin, ultimately deriving from Latin "mensura," meaning "measure." "Mensura" is also an ancestor of "commensurate" (meaning "coextensive" or "proportionate") and "incommensurate" ("disproportionate" or "insufficient"), which overlap in meaning with "commensurable" and "incommensurable" but are not exact synonyms.
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