Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Colic
/ˈkɒlɪk/noun
Severe griping pain in the abdomen, or prolonged unexplained crying in a healthy baby.
The Greek roots
κόλον
kólon
large intestine
Literally: “of the bowel”
Follow a root:κόλον4 words
The story of the word
κόλον was the large intestine and κωλικός the adjective for pain in it. English has had colic since the early fifteenth century, and the modern use has drifted well past the anatomy: infant colic is defined by hours of crying and no diagnosis at all. The punctuation colon is a different Greek word, κῶλον, a limb, which grammarians used for a clause; two unrelated words hide behind one English spelling.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → Old French → English
- First recorded
- 15th century
Same family
coloncolitiscolonoscopy
In a sentence
Renal colic comes in waves and there is no position that helps.
The baby had colic for eleven weeks and then simply stopped.