Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Hypertonic
/ˌhaɪpərˈtɑnɪk/adjective
Having a higher concentration of dissolved particles than the fluid it is compared with, or, of muscle, held in excessive tension.
The Greek roots
ὑπέρ
hypér
over, above
τόνος
tónos
stretching, tension
Literally: “over-stretched”
The story of the word
τόνος is a stretching, from τείνω, to stretch, and it covers a bowstring, a rope, a musical pitch and the tone of a muscle at once. Physiology took the muscle sense and chemistry the osmotic one, so a hypertonic saline drip pulls water out of cells while a hypertonic limb is one held too stiff to move. Sports drinks are sold on this vocabulary, mostly by people who mean isotonic.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
hypotonicisotonictonemonotonehyperbole
In a sentence
Hypertonic saline is used to draw fluid off a swollen brain.
Salt water is hypertonic to your cells, which is why drinking it makes thirst worse.