per-minute

The term "per-minute" is a modern English compound formed by combining the Latin preposition "per," meaning "through" or "by," with the noun "minute." The word "minute" itself has a fascinating journey, originating from the Latin pars minuta prima, meaning "first small part" (of an hour), which entered English via Medieval Latin and Old French. The logic of "per-minute" is directly mathematical and distributive, applying the Latin "per" in its modern sense of "for each" to the standard unit of time. This construction follows a clear pattern in English for creating adjectival or adverbial phrases that specify a rate or frequency, such as "per-hour" or "per-second," making the abstract concept of a rate concrete and calculable.

Structure: per (through, by) + minute (a unit of time) per: Latin origin, a preposition meaning "through, by means of, by". In English, it functions as a combining form meaning "for each". minute: Latin origin (from minuta, "small, minute"), via Old French. In English, it functions as a noun meaning a unit of time equal to sixty seconds.