even-odd

Updated: May 8, 2025

To the triad the Pythagoreans likewise attached much significance, since it has a beginning, a middle, and an end. To unity, or one, they gave the designation of the even-odd, asserting that it contained the property both of the even and odd, as is plain from the fact that if one be added to an even number it becomes odd, but if to an odd number it becomes even.

John William Draper - History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2): Revised Edition