Glaucoma
/ɡlɔːˈkoʊmə/noun
A group of eye diseases in which pressure inside the eye damages the optic nerve and narrows the field of vision.
The Greek roots
Literally: “the grey-gleaming condition”
The story of the word
γλαυκός covered a gleaming blue-grey, the colour of an olive leaf turning in wind, and Hippocratic writers used it for the grey-green pupil of the old. The name stuck to a disease that has nothing to do with colour: pressure inside the eye killing the optic nerve silently, from the edges of vision inward, which is why half the people who have it do not know. Athena's fixed epithet γλαυκῶπις comes from the same word, and so does the owl.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 1640s
Same family
In a sentence
Glaucoma took the outer edges of his vision years before he noticed a problem.
Anyone with a parent who had glaucoma should be getting pressure checks.