Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Hypertrophy
/haɪˈpɜːrtrəfi/noun
The enlargement of an organ or tissue by growth in the size of its existing cells.
The Greek roots
ὑπέρ
hypér
over, beyond
τροφή
trophḗ
nourishment, feeding
Literally: “over-feeding”
The story of the word
Its pair is atrophy, wasting for want of feeding, and between them the two words cover a great deal of pathology. Physiologists insist on the line between hypertrophy and hyperplasia: the first makes cells bigger, the second makes more of them, and lifting weights does the first. A trained rower's heart and an untreated hypertensive's heart are both hypertrophic, for opposite reasons and with opposite outcomes.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → French → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
atrophydystrophytrophichyperbole
In a sentence
Twelve weeks of that programme produced measurable hypertrophy in the quadriceps.