Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Cryotherapy
/ˌkraɪoʊˈθɛrəpi/noun
Treatment using extreme cold, from freezing off a wart to standing in a chilled chamber after training.
The Greek roots
κρύος
krýos
icy cold, frost
θεραπεία
therapeía
healing, attendance
Literally: “healing by cold”
The story of the word
θεραπεία first meant service or attendance, the care a servant gives a master or a worshipper gives a god, and only drifted into medicine later. κρύος also produced crystal, since the Greeks took rock crystal for water frozen so hard it would not thaw. Clinical cryotherapy with liquid nitrogen has solid evidence behind it; the whole-body cold chambers sold to athletes have far less.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 20th century
Same family
cryogenicscrystaltherapytherapist
In a sentence
The dermatologist cleared the lesion with two rounds of cryotherapy.