Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Meningitis
/ˌmɛnɪnˈdʒaɪtɪs/noun
Inflammation of the membranes wrapping the brain and spinal cord.
The Greek roots
μῆνιγξ
mêninx
membrane
-ῖτις
-îtis
inflammation of
Literally: “membrane inflammation”
The story of the word
μῆνιγξ meant any membrane, though Greek doctors used it above all for the layers around the brain. The disease name appears in the 1820s, once physicians could tell inflammation of the coverings from inflammation of the brain itself. English keeps the Greek stem in the plural: one meninx, three meninges, and the middle one is the arachnoid, named for looking like a spider's web.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → medical Latin → English
- First recorded
- 1820s
Same family
meningesmeningealmeningococcus
In a sentence
They kept her in overnight to rule out meningitis.