Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Dyspnea
/dɪspˈniːə/noun
Difficult or laboured breathing, the sensation of not getting enough air.
The Greek roots
δυσ-
dys-
bad, difficult
πνοή
pnoḗ
breathing, breath
Literally: “hard breathing”
The story of the word
The Hippocratic writers already used δύσπνοια for the patient who fights for breath. Greek had the exact mirror image, εὔπνοια, easy breathing, and physiologists still write eupnea for a normal resting pattern. The δυσ- prefix is the same one hiding in dyslexia and dysentery, and it never means simply 'not' but always 'badly'.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 17th century
Same family
apneadyslexiapneumoniadysentery
In a sentence
He climbed one flight of stairs and the dyspnea was bad enough that he sat down on the landing.
Dyspnea on exertion was the first symptom she mentioned.