Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Adenoid
/ˈædɪnɔɪd/noun
The mass of lymphoid tissue at the back of the nose, usually spoken of in the plural.
The Greek roots
ἀδήν
adḗn
gland
εἶδος
eîdos
form, appearance
Literally: “gland shaped”
The story of the word
The word arrived in the nineteenth century as an adjective for tissue that looked glandular under the knife. It is not glandular, so the name preserves a nineteenth-century mistake. The plural noun came into common speech only once surgeons started removing the things, which is why a child can be described as having adenoids as though nobody else does.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
adenomaadenosinelymphadenopathy
In a sentence
He snored like a diesel engine until they took out his adenoids.