> “Historically the term was used for a number that was a multiple of 1, or to the whole part of a mixed number. Only positive integers were considered, making the term synonymous with the natural numbers”
In fact, they didn't even consider 1 to be a number, let alone zero -- at least aristotle didn't, and his definition was the accepted one in Europe for many centuries.
Though I think you need to sort of separate out what philosophers and mathematicians thought about numbers from what regular people did. I think people obviously had an intuitive understanding of zero and one as quantities, even if it wasn't formally defined that way by philosophers for thousands of years.
In fact, they didn't even consider 1 to be a number, let alone zero -- at least aristotle didn't, and his definition was the accepted one in Europe for many centuries.
Though I think you need to sort of separate out what philosophers and mathematicians thought about numbers from what regular people did. I think people obviously had an intuitive understanding of zero and one as quantities, even if it wasn't formally defined that way by philosophers for thousands of years.