One of the most peculiar numeral words in English, zenzizenzizenzic (/’zɛnziːzɛnziːzɛnzik/), denotes the square of the square of a number’s square. It appeared only once in English, in Robert Recorde’s The Whetstone of Wit (1557). The term derives from the obsolete zenzic, meaning the square of a number. Zenzic was borrowed from German, where mathematicians of the 14th and 15th centuries adopted it from the medieval Italian censo, itself a descendant of Latin census. Italian algebraists used censo to translate the Arabic māl (literally “possessions” or “property”), the standard term for a squared number. This association arose because early mathematicians, including the Arabs, conceptualized squared numbers as representing areas, particularly land—hence, property.
Notably, zenzizenzizenzic is the only English word with six Zs.
