Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Helix
/ˈhiːlɪks/noun
The curved outer rim of the ear, and more widely any spiral curve winding around an axis.
The Greek roots
ἕλιξ
hélix
spiral, coil
ἑλίσσειν
helíssein
to turn, wind
Literally: “a twisted thing”
The story of the word
ἕλιξ named anything twisted: a snail shell, a vine's tendril, a curl of hair. Anatomists gave it to the rolled outer edge of the ear, which is still its clinical sense and the reason a helix piercing goes where it does. When Watson and Crick published the structure of DNA in 1953 they reached for the same noun, so a Greek word for a tendril now sits at the centre of molecular biology.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 1560s
Same family
helicalhelicopterhelicoid
In a sentence
He had a small gold ring through the helix of his left ear.