Unsquare would be ok. It kind of implies the existance of two roots. If you unsquare 4 you could get 2 or -2. Whether that is what we want is another important question.
IOW, if we are going to coin a new term, would it be preferable to have it refer only to the positive solution, both solutions, complex solutions, or leave it ambiguous the same as “take the square root of”?
By convention, the nth root of a complex number z is the principal branch of z[sup]1/n[/sup]. In the case of the square root of a positive real, it refers to the positive value.
When did they stop extracting roots?
TrisYeah I know. (Although you always express these things so precisely.) The point is, if we are coining a new verb, then it might be a good time to make sure it means exactly what we want it to mean. I like “unsquare”, but it seems ambiguous to me. Maybe that’s a good thing to have?? Hence the question.
You’d be correct… At least in Japanese, I’d say 開平する (kahei suru), which would translate roughly as “do square root.”
Creating maths words is fun. I too, like “squirt”.
Another one I use is “ensmallment” as a short way of saying “enlargement with a fractional scale factor”. It’s funny and it sticks in your head.
In German it’s not a single-word verb either - it’s a phrasal verb: die Wurzel ziehen (literally, to pull the root)
Ich ziehe die Quadratwurzel aus x - I calculate the square root of x
Ich ziehe die n-te Wurzel aus x - I calculate the n-th root of x (e.g. n=3 for cubic root)
In Dutch the operation is known as ‘worteltrekken’ which, like the German prhase, translates to ‘pulling roots’.