Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Hypoxia
/haɪˈpɒksiə/noun
A shortage of oxygen reaching the tissues.
The Greek roots
ὑπό
hypó
under, below
ὀξύς
oxýs
sharp, acid
Literally: “under-sharpness, too little oxygen”
The story of the word
A twentieth-century hybrid: Greek ὑπό plus the ox of oxygen, itself built from ὀξύς because Lavoisier wrongly believed the gas was what made acids acid. Hypoxia is too little oxygen at the tissues; anoxia is none at all. Climbers start to feel it above roughly 2,500 metres, and altitude tents provoke it deliberately to push the body into making more red cells.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 20th century
Same family
oxygenanoxiahypothermiaoxymoron
In a sentence
The pilot's checklist treats hypoxia as the first suspect for confused radio calls.