Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Heparin
/ˈhɛpərɪn/noun
An anticoagulant drug that prevents and treats blood clots.
The Greek roots
ἧπαρ
hêpar
liver
Literally: “liver substance”
Follow a root:ἧπαρ3 words
The story of the word
Jay McLean found the anticoagulant activity in 1916 as a medical student, and W. H. Howell named it heparin in 1918 after the liver tissue it was first extracted from. Most commercial heparin now comes from pig intestinal mucosa instead, so the name records a starting point rather than a source. The Greek stem also gives hepatitis and the hepatic artery.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1918
Same family
hepatitishepatichepatology
In a sentence
She was on heparin injections for the first week after surgery.