Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Antiseptic
/ˌæntɪˈsɛptɪk/noun
A substance that kills or checks the microbes causing infection in living tissue.
The Greek roots
ἀντί
antí
against
σήπειν
sḗpein
to rot, putrefy
Literally: “against rotting”
The story of the word
The word is older than germ theory. It turns up in English in 1751, when putrefaction itself was the enemy and nobody could say what caused it; Joseph Lister's carbolic acid work from 1867 gave it the meaning it has now by identifying what an antiseptic actually kills. σήπειν, to rot, also gives sepsis and the septic tank, where matter is deliberately left to do exactly what the antiseptic prevents.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1751
Same family
sepsissepticasepticsepticaemia
In a sentence
She kept an antiseptic wipe in every coat pocket after the second toddler.