word scalaris, an adjectival form of scala (Latin for "ladder"). The first recorded usage of the word "scalar" in mathematics occurs in François Viète's Analytic Art (In artem analyticem isagoge) (1591):

:Magnitudes that ascend or descend proportionally in keeping with their nature from one kind to another may be called scalar terms.
:(Latin: Magnitudines quae ex genere ad genus sua vi proportionaliter adscendunt vel descendunt, vocentur Scalares.)

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