Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Anthrax
/ˈænθræks/noun
A bacterial disease of livestock and humans caused by Bacillus anthracis.
The Greek roots
ἄνθραξ
ánthrax
coal, charcoal
Literally: “charcoal”
Follow a root:ἄνθραξ2 words
The story of the word
Greek doctors used anthrax for a burning boil, borrowing the word for a live coal. The skin form of the disease leaves a black scab, and that colour rather than the heat fixed the name. Robert Koch worked out the full life cycle of the bacterium in 1876, the first time a specific microbe was tied to a specific disease. Anthracite, the hard black coal, is the same word.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 14th century
Same family
anthraciteanthracene
In a sentence
Vets vaccinate herds against anthrax in districts where old burial pits remain.