Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Enteritis
/ˌɛntəˈraɪtɪs/noun
Inflammation of the small intestine, usually announcing itself with cramping and diarrhoea.
The Greek roots
ἔντερον
énteron
intestine, innards
-ῖτις
-îtis
inflammation of
Literally: “gut inflammation”
The story of the word
That suffix is a grammatical accident that got promoted. In a phrase like arthrîtis nósos, disease of the joints, the ending was simply a feminine adjective agreeing with nósos; the noun fell away and the ending was left carrying the meaning alone, so nineteenth-century medicine could bolt -itis onto any organ it pleased. Énteron meant innards in general, which is why it also sits inside dysentery and gastroenterology.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
dysenterygastroenteritismesenteryenteric
In a sentence
Radiation enteritis can appear months after the treatment ends.