Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Asthma
/ˈæzmə/noun
A condition in which the airways narrow and swell, making breathing difficult.
The Greek roots
ἄσθμα
ásthma
panting, hard breathing
Literally: “panting”
Follow a root:ἄσθμα1 word
The story of the word
The Iliad uses the word of Hector laid out on the ground, gasping after a blow, long before any doctor took it up. Hippocratic writers made it a medical term for laboured breathing. English had it by the late 14th century spelled asma, which is still exactly how it sounds; 16th-century editors put the th back to show the Greek, leaving behind a letter nobody pronounces.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- late 14th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
In a sentence
His asthma is worse in cold air than in pollen season.
She keeps an inhaler in every coat because of the asthma.