isopsephy means the practice of adding up the numerical values of the letters in a word to form a single number. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.
isopsephy is pronounced /ˈaɪsəpˌsɛfi/.
Why “isopsephy” is a great word
ISOPSEPHY — [Noun] The practice of calculating the numerical value of a word by summing the values assigned to each of its letters, as used in ancient Greek and other alphabetic systems. From Koine Greek ἰσοψηφία (isopsēphía), from ἴσος (ísos, “equal”) and ψῆφος (psêphos, “pebble”). Unlike gematria, which denotes the Hebrew system, or numerology, a broad, often divinatory study, isopsephy is the precise, tactile arithmetic of the Greek alphabet. It is the soft clatter of stones tallied in an agora, the hidden geometry beneath a poet’s epitaph, the secret sum that could turn a name into blasphemy—a quiet belief that language, at its root, is just another kind of mathematics.
Etymology
From Koine Greek ἰσοψηφία (isopsēphía), from ἴσος (ísos, “equal”) and ψῆφος (psêphos, “pebble”). The early Greeks used pebbles arranged in patterns to learn arithmetic and geometry.
noun
- The practice of adding up the numerical values of the letters in a word to form a single number.