Are there words in English that include the prefix bi- whose current usage includes meanings other than 'two'?
To clarify, I am specifically looking for the prefix of Latin origin meaning "two". If we used the word bicycle (bi- + cycle) to refer to vehicles with one or three wheels, that would be an example of what I'm looking for.*
* Obviously we don't use bicycle this way; my example is to illustrate that if we did use bicycle this way, it would be the sort of thing I'm looking for.
billion comes from bi- + million, as it originally meant the product of two millions - in other words, a million million. This usage persists in Europe (see long scale), but in America a billion means a thousand million. (In the long scale this would be called a milliard.)
One is biscuit / biscotti, which literally means "twice cooked". Although the prefix here is "bis", it does start with "bi", so...
from Oxford Living Dictionary:
Origin
Middle English: from Old French bescuit, based on Latin bis ‘twice’ + coctus, past participle of coquere ‘to cook’ (so named because originally biscuits were cooked in a twofold process: first baked and then dried out in a slow oven so that they would keep).
The example given by the OP isn't too far off the mark. Rather than bicycle consider the shortened version "bike" where it may be used as part of another word e.g. quad-bike. In this case it is being used to describe a 4 wheeled cycle.
Might be a bit of a stretch, but...
a temporary encampment with few facilities, as used by soldiers, mountaineers, etc verb -acs, -acking or -acked (intr) to make such an encampment
Word Origin and History for bivouac
n. 1702, from French bivouac (17c.), ultimately from Swiss/Alsatian biwacht "night guard," from bei- "double, additional" + wacht "guard" (see wait (v.)). Original meaning was an army that stayed up on night watch; sense of "outdoor camp" is 1853. Not a common word in English before the Napoleonic Wars. Italian bivacco is from French. As a verb, 1809, "to post troops in the night;" meaning "camp out of doors" is from 1814.
I don't think it was ever used in the "double" sense in English, though.
While bigamy technically means the act of taking a second spouse while still legally married to a first (in cultures that enforce marital monogamy), in practice it also refers to people who have a whole series of such fraudulent marriages, a classic example being the sailor with a wife in every port. (The closely related word bigamist is the person who commits this act.)
The original meaning "two+spouse" has become "(two or more)+spouse". Not a huge change but a change nonetheless. A bicycle with three wheels is no longer a bicycle but a bigamist with three spouses is still a bigamist.
Dictionary cites:
bigamist (n.) "one who has had two or more wives or husbands at once," (Etymonline, emphasis added)
"A man was charged with bigamy for being married to 17 wives." (Sample usage from oxforddictionaries.com)
(noun) unlawful marriage, illegal marriage, multiple illegal marriages, multiple spouses, marrying multiple partners, marrying multiple wives, marrying multiple husbands (Burton's Legal Thesaurus, Android app, retrieved 2018-06-26, emphasis added.)
A web search for the term serial bigamist pulls up a fair number of newspaper articles about people with multiple concurrent fraudulent marriages. Grammatically the term doesn't make sense, unless the word refers to the pattern of deception and not the specific state of having exactly two spouses. (And note that I have not been able to find a reputable dictionary that covers this usage, but mainstream newspapers from multiple parts of the English-speaking world do use it.)
(Bigamy is distinct from polygamy, whether legal or not, where a man has multiple wives with the knowledge and relative consent of all parties. Rarer still is polyandry where one woman has multiple husbands, best known from impoverished areas where a set of brothers may share one farm and one wife. Both differ from modern polyamory where consenting adults create individualized rules about long term relationships.)
Newspaper usage:
Serial bigamy is a lot more lucrative than it used to be. Immigrants looking for green cards will pay sham spouses thousands of dollars for an “I do,” said one law enforcement source [...] (New York Post, 2005-04-12)
The downfall of a serial bigamist and conman (Irish Examiner headline, 2012-03-08)
Serial Bigamist Pleads Guilty (Toronto Sun video clip title, 2018-02-23)
Multiple Bigamist Leaves Court (BBC photo caption, 2009-07-27)
Bronx Multiple Bigamist: Woman Caught With Ten Marriages, Only Four Divorces (Headline, The Inquisitr, 2005-04-10 (Note: better known as a source of scandal and gossip than news))
Polyandry is still widely prevalent, a practice once common in Tibet. Brothers share a single wife, and it seems to create little domestic discord. (The Tribune (Chandigarh, North India) 2002-04-21)
They practice what is known as fraternal polyandry -- where the brothers of one family marry the same woman. Why? Tradition and economics. (CNN, 2008-10-24)
Definitions (all from dictionary.com) :
My pet peeve: bimonthly, which means every 2 months, but also every 1/2 a month. The latter meeting your criteria.
Edit: I'm relieved that other people find this as odd as me. Yes bimonthly means twice a month and also every 2 months.
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/explore/bimonthly/
I suspect this happened because there aren't many things that occur every 2 months, so that usage fell out.
If you can forgive the transformation of bi- to ba- over time, a barouche is a luxurious, four-wheeled carriage drawn by horses. The word ultimately comes from Latin birotus (bi- "two" + rotus "wheel").
See articles on the Online Etymology Dictionary and Wikipedia.
Perhaps bifurcation is an example? At least the mathematical sense given in Wiktionary,
The change in the qualitative or topological structure of a given family as decribed by bifurcation theory.
seems to allow for more general cases than a splitting in two. I’m afraid I don’t know enough about dynamical systems to be sure whether this is a possibility, and whether it would still be called bifurcation.
As @origimbo points out in the comments, a prominent example is the pitchfork bifurcation, "where the system transitions from one fixed point to three fixed points". This seems to be a clear example of what the OP is asking for.
"Bicarbonate" and "bisulfate", maybe; these are (in chemistry) older, discouraged (but still in somewhat common use, especially "bicarbonate") names for the hydrogencarbonate and hydrogensulfate anions, respectively. The "bi" originally came from the observation that a hydrogencarbonate or hydrogensulfate salt has twice as much carbonate or sulfate per cation than a plain carbonate or sulfate salt.
"Bisexual" is at least a partial example; its original, narrow definition was "one who is sexually attracted to both males and females", but it now also has a broader definition as "one who is sexually attracted to persons of any gender" (thus allowing for persons with gender other than male or female).
Binary seems like a good fit for OP's conditions.
- Computers. binary code.
- Computers. an executable file stored in binary format.
The use of "binary" in computer science originally meant a stream of instructions entered as base-2 integers, 1 or 0, on or off. Think punch cards: hole or no hole. However, these days one would struggle to find any executable code written strictly in ones and zeros without examining the physical bits on optical or magnetic storage media.
Binary in modern computer science has a connotation of the opposite of plain text. FTP software offers a practical example of this opposition. Binary files are executable or data files largely composed of content that is not human readable. What makes this usage meet OP's guidelines is that binary files are usually examined not as a stream of base-2 integers, but of base-16 hexadecimals (0-9, A-F) in a hex editor. If you attempt to open a picture or video file in a text editor (such as Notepad within Windows), you'll quickly see that binary files consist of more than ones and zeros.
Addendum: In a subtly different context, the label of "binary" is applied to data comprised largely of extended characters (non-alphanumeric, non-punctuation). Consider base64 encoding of binary data. Within this context, coders do not consciously consider the base64 result to be binary, but something converted from binary. Whether the reader agrees that the binary label should be applied only to non-text data is not the point. All I'm saying is, there is precedent. There is prior art. This is happening to the English language heedless of anyone's approval.
I've several times heard the word bilingual used to mean "Spanish- and English-speaking," without regard to how many other languages a person may know. For example, a person who knows Spanish, English and French would still count as "bilingual" in this usage.
We need a bilingual secretary.
Are you bilingual?
In both cases, English-speaking is assumed, Spanish-speaking is implied, and the actual number of languages spoken is unimportant. No doubt this is more common in areas of the U.S. where there's a significant Spanish-speaking population.
Another potential contender can be bipolar
bipolar [adjective]
(of psychiatric illness) characterized by both manic and depressive episodes, or manic ones only.
(of a person) suffering from bipolar disorder.
source: ODO
From Royal College of Psychiatrists:
Bipolar I
If you have had at least one high or manic episode, which has lasted for longer than one week. You may only have manic episodes, although most people with Bipolar I also have periods of depression. Untreated, a manic episode will generally last 3 to 6 months. Depressive episodes last rather longer - 6 to 12 months without treatment.
Another possible word could be bicarbonate. Bicarbonate does not mean two carbonates, but rather hydrogenated carbonate. The carbonate ion is CO32-, while the bicarbonate ion is HCO3-
Wikipedia mentions this naming is rather outdated, and not really used in current chemistry:
The prefix "bi" in "bicarbonate" comes from an outdated naming system and is based on the observation that there is two times as much carbonate (CO3) in sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3) and other bicarbonates as in sodium carbonate (Na2CO3) and other carbonates.
The definition given in Oxford Living Dictionaries seems to indicate that a biennale no longer has to be an event occurring every two years:
biennale, noun: A large art exhibition or music festival, especially one held biennially.
While maybe not as credible as a source of information, Wikipedia has this to say in its opening chapter on biennales:
... "Biennale" is therefore used as a general term for other recurrent international events (such as triennials, Documenta, Skulptur Projekte Münster).
Bisexual is gradually becoming an example as people realise that there is more than two genders.
From Merriam-Webster (emphasis mine):
bisexual [adjective]
1 a: (...)
b: of, relating to, or characterized by sexual or romantic attraction to members of both sexes; also : engaging in sexual activity with partners of more than one gender
I think bipartisan may meet the OP's requirements.
However, this may be American-centric. Bipartisan certainly meant "two parties" originally. However, when someone says "bipartisan" here, they mean "broad political support" and are probably not consciously enumerating/counting parties. If there was a political option that enjoyed strong support between three political parties, would we say it has "tripartisan" support? I don't know - maybe an Anglophone from a multi-party country could opine.
Balance is another common word that can be easily missed as the ancient prefix -bi is no longer discernible in the word. English borrowed it from French balance in the thirteenth century with the meaning "uncertainty, risk, hazard, doubt, wavering" and the meaning "weighing scales" came later. Today, it has many figurative and other senses not related to "two". It is originated from Latin bilanx meaning two-scaled.
The etymology of balance from OED:
< French balance (= Spanish balanza, Provençal balansa, Italian bilancia) < late Latin bilancia a pair of scales, < classical Latin bilanx, bilanc-em, adjective (in libra bilanx) ‘two-scaled,’ < bi- twice + lanx flat plate, scale.
Note: The French word balance might have been altered with false analogy from ballant (dangling, hanging) or ballare (to dance). The proper form is retained in the word bilan (balance-sheet) where French borrowed from Italian bilancio.
Shot in the dark here, but the first word that came to my mind that I use quite often myself but never fathomed was bistro.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bistro
I am not able to find proper roots for it, but for what I can make out it simply means "small restaurant / dining establishment" - in no relation to the meaning it originally held (two).
Though, bis- could very well be the root...
Some etymologies of "bismuth" suggest that the word originates from Arabic with "bi" coming from a word meaning "similar."
