Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Histology
/hɪˈstɑːlədʒi/noun
The microscopic study of the tissues of organisms.
The Greek roots
ἱστός
histós
loom, web, tissue
λογία
-logía
study, discourse
Literally: “study of the web”
The story of the word
ἱστός meant the upright loom, then the warp standing on it, then anything woven, and it also named a ship's mast, since both stand up. A. F. J. K. Mayer put it into the modern name in 1819. The weaving metaphor was already there in French: Bichat had called the body's layers tissus, tissues, and both languages arrived at cloth independently while looking at the same thin membranes.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → German → English
- First recorded
- 1840s
Same family
histopathologyhistaminebiologygeology
In a sentence
The histology came back clear, which ended two weeks of waiting.