Etymology

brachistochrone

B3R1A1C3H4I1S1T1O1C3H4R1O1N1E1

Today it means: A cycloid; the curve of fastest descent between two points. Full definition →

Ancient Greek βράχιστος
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Ancient Greek · derived fromβράχιστος“shortest”
  2. English todaybrachistochrone

From Ancient Greek βράχιστος (brákhistos, “shortest”) + χρόνος (khrónos, “time”). The term was coined by Johann Bernoulli.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.