Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Acne
/ˈækni/noun
A skin condition of blocked, inflamed follicles, usually on the face and back.
The Greek roots
ἀκμή
akmḗ
point, highest point
Literally: “a point, a peak”
Follow a root:ἀκμή1 word
The story of the word
The word rests on a copying mistake. Aëtius of Amida, writing in the sixth century, used ἀκμή, point, for the facial eruption, and a scribe somewhere wrote ἀκνάς where ἀκμάς belonged. The error passed into medical Latin and reached English dermatology in the 1830s, which means acne and acme are one Greek word separated by a slip of the pen.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Medieval Latin → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
acmeacridacumen
In a sentence
The acne cleared up in his twenties and left almost no scarring.
Half the treatments on the shelf promise to cure acne in a week.