Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Hysterectomy
/ˌhɪstəˈrɛktəmi/noun
Surgical removal of the uterus.
The Greek roots
ὑστέρα
hystéra
womb
ἐκτομή
ektomḗ
a cutting out
Literally: “cutting out the womb”
The story of the word
The womb gave Greek medicine its most durable mistake. ὑστέρα is the uterus, and the Hippocratic writers held that it could wander the body and press on other organs, producing the fits that later got the name hysteria. The operation takes its name in the nineteenth century, by which point hysteria and the uterus had begun a long divorce that took another hundred years to finish.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
hysteriaappendectomytonsillectomyhysteroscopy
In a sentence
She had a hysterectomy at thirty-four and spent a year arguing with people who thought she should be sadder about it.
Most hysterectomies today are done through small incisions.