Embolism
/ˈɛmbəlɪzəm/noun
The blocking of a blood vessel by a clot, bubble or fragment carried there from elsewhere.
The Greek roots
Literally: “a throwing in”
The story of the word
For its first three centuries in English an embolism was a calendar matter, the extra days shoved into a lunar year to keep it aligned with the sun, since ἐμβολισμός meant an insertion. Virchow moved the word into medicine in 1848 for a clot that has travelled and plugged a vessel, going back to ἔμβολος, a stopper or wedge, the same noun the Greeks used for the ram on a warship's prow. The verb underneath, ἐμβάλλειν, also produced emblem and, at one remove, symbol.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Late Latin → Old French → English
- First recorded
- 14th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
In a sentence
A pulmonary embolism after the flight put him in hospital for a week.
Divers surface slowly to avoid an air embolism.