Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Basophil
/ˈbeɪsəfɪl/noun
The rarest kind of white blood cell, packed with granules that release histamine in allergic reactions.
The Greek roots
βάσις
básis
step, base, foundation
φίλος
phílos
loving, fond of
Literally: “base-loving”
The story of the word
Paul Ehrlich named the white cells in the 1870s by what they were fond of, sorting them with his aniline dyes: basophils took up the basic stains, eosinophils the acidic eosin, neutrophils neither. It was classification by chemistry before anyone knew what the cells were for, and the names outlived the reasoning. Greek βάσις meant a step or a footing, from βαίνω, to walk, which is also how a chemical base got its name.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
eosinophilbasisphilosophyhemophilia
In a sentence
Her basophil count was high enough that the lab flagged the sample.