Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Bronchitis
/brɒŋˈkaɪtɪs/noun
Inflammation of the airways leading into the lungs, with a cough that outstays its welcome.
The Greek roots
βρόγχος
brónchos
windpipe
-ῖτις
-îtis
inflammation of
Literally: “windpipe inflammation”
The story of the word
Charles Badham named the illness in 1808, hanging the suffix -ῖτις on βρόγχος. That suffix began as a feminine adjective agreeing with νόσος, disease: ἀρθρῖτις meant the joint one, with disease understood. Medicine has since bolted it onto hundreds of organs, and Badham's word is one of the models.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → medical Latin → English
- First recorded
- 1808
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
bronchusbronchoscopybronchodilator
In a sentence
Every winter the same bronchitis, and every winter the same useless syrup.