Sport & ContestGreek → English
Mesomorph
/ˈmɛzəmɔrf/noun
A person of muscular, broad-shouldered build who puts on strength readily.
The Greek roots
μέσος
mésos
middle
μορφή
morphḗ
form, shape
Literally: “middle form”
The story of the word
The middle germ layer of the embryo, the mesoderm, becomes bone and muscle, so Sheldon in 1940 handed the muscular build the middle name. His system scored everyone on all three components from one to seven, giving a profile rather than a box; popular use threw away the numbers. μέσος also gives Mesopotamia, the land in the middle of the rivers.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1940
Same family
ectomorphendomorphMesozoicmesosphere
In a sentence
Sprint squads are full of mesomorphs, which says more about selection than about destiny.
He was a mesomorph before he ever touched a barbell.