Why the abbrevation of "Left side of equation" is "lhs"

Sometimes I am very confused about the name conventions of functions in matlab. Such as the lhs. The help website says that "lhs" is "Left side of equation". But where does the "h" come from?

Answer 1

[Bruno Luong]

left hand side

[Daniel Pollard]

To add, this isn't unique to Matlab. I've seen the term "LHS" refer to the left side of an equation many times, in all maths-based contexts.

[Walter Roberson]

In symbolic work, lhs and rhs are taken directly from the Maple software that used to underlay the symbolic toolbox.

[Image Analyst]

True, the "hand" is probably unneeded and redundant ("left side" would describe it just as well), but that's commonly how people say it when talking, at least in English.

Like a wise man once said:

Never say "blah, blah, blah" when "blah" will do.