Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Emphysema
/ˌɛmfɪˈsiːmə/noun
A lung disease in which the air sacs are enlarged and damaged, trapping air and leaving the patient short of breath.
The Greek roots
ἐν
en
in, into
φυσᾶν
physân
to blow, inflate
Literally: “a blowing in”
The story of the word
ἐμφύσημα is an inflation, from the verb used for blowing up a bladder or fanning a fire. Seventeenth-century English medicine applied it to any pocket of air trapped where none belonged, under the skin after an injury for instance, and surgeons still speak that way. The lung sense narrowed later: alveoli stretched past their elastic limit, so the chest fills with air that cannot be pushed back out.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 17th century
Same family
emphasisempathyenergy
In a sentence
Twenty years of smoking left him with emphysema and a permanent lean toward the nearest chair.