Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Chyme
/kaɪm/noun
The semi-liquid mass of partly digested food that the stomach passes into the small intestine.
The Greek roots
χυμός
chymós
juice, humour
Literally: “juice”
Follow a root:χυμός1 word
The story of the word
Galen's medicine ran on χυμοί, the humours, and both chyme and chyle come out of that vocabulary before later anatomists split them into stomach output and lymph. The root verb is χέω, to pour, which also stands behind ecchymosis, blood poured out under the skin, and parenchyma, tissue poured in beside. Physiologists reserve chyme strictly for the acid slurry leaving the pylorus and call nothing else by the name.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 17th century
Same family
chyleecchymosisparenchyma
In a sentence
The pylorus lets the chyme through a few millilitres at a time.