Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Ganglion
/ˈɡæŋɡliən/noun
A cluster of nerve cell bodies outside the brain and spinal cord, or a fluid-filled cyst on a tendon sheath.
The Greek roots
γάγγλιον
gánglion
knot, swelling
Literally: “a knot under the skin”
Follow a root:γάγγλιον1 word
The story of the word
Greek doctors used the word for a lump beneath the skin, so the wrist cyst that surgeons still call a ganglion is the older sense, and the neurological one is Galen's extension. English kept both, which is why the same word can mean a relay station of the nervous system and a bump on the back of your hand. The traditional cure for the bump was to burst it with a heavy book, a treatment recorded in old texts as the Bible bump and no longer recommended.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 17th century
Same family
ganglionicganglioside
In a sentence
The shingles virus lies dormant in a nerve ganglion for decades.