Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Chiropractic
/ˌkaɪrəˈpræktɪk/noun
A system of manual treatment based on adjusting the spine and other joints.
The Greek roots
χείρ
kheír
hand
πρακτικός
praktikós
practical, doing
Literally: “done by hand”
The story of the word
Daniel David Palmer, a grocer and magnetic healer in Davenport, Iowa, made his first adjustment in 1895 on a janitor named Harvey Lillard. The name came the next year from a patient, the Reverend Samuel Weed, who supplied the Greek. χείρ is everywhere in English medicine and writing, chiropody for the feet, chirography for handwriting, surgery itself through Greek χειρουργία, work done by hand.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1898
Same family
chiropodistsurgerychirographychiral
In a sentence
She tried chiropractic after physiotherapy stalled and got some relief in the lower back.