Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Biopsy
/ˈbaɪɒpsi/noun
The removal of tissue from a living body for examination.
The Greek roots
βίος
bíos
life
ὄψις
ópsis
sight, view
Literally: “viewing the living”
The story of the word
Coined in French as biopsie in 1879 by the dermatologist Ernest Besnier, and built deliberately against autopsy. Autopsy means seeing for yourself, and by then meant cutting up the dead; biopsy insists that the patient is alive. The second element also sits inside optic and synopsis.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → French coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1879
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
autopsyopticsynopsisbiology
In a sentence
The biopsy came back clear, and she cried in the car park.