Studying for an important test like the GRE or SAT can seem overwhelming sometimes, with all of the facts and figures you need to learn and memorize. Given the amount of work required to prepare for these exams, it might feel as if you have only an infinitesimal chance at success.

The word infinitesimal is an adjective that describes something that is so small it’s impossible to even measure how small it is. The German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz may have coined the term in the late 17th century as part of his work on the development of the mathematical concepts and functions of calculus (though there is much disagreement as to whether Leibniz came up with these concepts, or copied the earlier work of the English physicist and mathematician Isaac Newton).

Based on the word infinite, which has its roots in the Latin prefix in- (“not”) and word finis (“the end”), the addition of the suffix -esimus (used in Latin to convert cardinal numbers to ordinal numbers, as we use the suffix -th to turn hundred into hundredth today), the word infinitesimal turns the concept of infinity on its head. Something that is infinite goes on forever, with the underlying sense that it gets larger and larger – think of the infinite (as far as we know, anyway) universe, expanding in all directions, or the infinite series of numbers starting with the basic 1-2-3. Something that is infinitesimal goes in the opposite direction, being infinitely small, and possibly continuing to get even smaller. We just don’t know, because it’s impossible to measure something that small, just as infinity is too big to measure.

Of course, both infinite and infinitesimal are most often used in hyperbole (using exaggeration for emphasis), since few things that we deal with in daily life are actually that large or that small. A beach resort might promise “an infinite number of recreational opportunities” but if you stayed there long enough, you’d still run out of things to do. A perfumier might say that his signature scent is so delicious because of the infinitesimal amount of patchouli oil he adds to the mix, but it’s still a measurable quantity in the production of that perfume.

Keep learning new words like these, and your progress will be measured in more than infinitesimal amounts, as you head out to the infinite horizon of future career successes!