Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Gastritis
/ɡæˈstraɪtɪs/noun
Inflammation of the stomach lining.
The Greek roots
γαστήρ
gastḗr
belly, stomach
-ῖτις
-îtis
inflammation of
Literally: “belly inflammation”
The story of the word
γαστήρ is the belly, and in Greek it also served for the womb: the Gospel phrase for a pregnant woman is ἐν γαστρὶ ἔχουσα, having in the belly. The disease name is early 19th century, built like every other -itis. Gastronomy comes from the same word, coined in French in 1801 as the title of a poem and meaning something close to the law of the stomach.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → medical Latin → English
- First recorded
- early 19th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
gastricgastronomygastropodgastroenteritis
In a sentence
Two weeks of ibuprofen on an empty stomach gave him gastritis.