Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Hemoglobin
/ˌhiːməˈɡloʊbɪn/noun
The iron-bearing protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen around the body.
The Greek roots
αἷμα
haîma
blood
Literally: “blood globule”
Follow a root:αἷμα13 words
The story of the word
A hybrid, and a shortened one: haîma, blood, plus Latin globulus, little sphere, first written as haematoglobulin in German and cut down in the 1860s. Chemists named it for what it looked like under glass, years before anyone worked out that it carries oxygen. Haîma runs through medicine: haemorrhage, a bursting of blood, anaemia, no blood, and haemophilia, which reads literally as love of blood and means very nearly the opposite.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek + Latin → German → English
- First recorded
- 1860s
Same family
anaemiahaemorrhagehaemophiliahaematology
In a sentence
Her hemoglobin was low enough to explain the exhaustion.
Hemoglobin is what makes blood red and rust the same colour for the same reason.