Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Coccyx
/ˈkɒksɪks/noun
The small tapering bone at the base of the spine, the remnant of a tail.
The Greek roots
κόκκυξ
kókkyx
cuckoo
Literally: “cuckoo”
Follow a root:κόκκυξ1 word
The story of the word
κόκκυξ is the cuckoo, named for its call. Herophilus, dissecting in Alexandria around 300 BC, decided the fused final vertebrae looked like a cuckoo's beak, and the name has held for well over two thousand years. English anatomy adopted it in the 17th century, leaving the human skeleton with a bone named purely for its resemblance to a bird.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 17th century
Same family
coccygealcoccydynia
In a sentence
She landed on her coccyx on the ice and could not sit down for a week.