Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Migraine
/ˈmaɪɡreɪn/noun
A severe recurring headache, often confined to one side of the head and often with nausea and disturbed vision.
The Greek roots
ἡμι-
hēmi-
half
κρανίον
kraníon
skull
Literally: “half skull”
The story of the word
Greek physicians described a pain sitting in one half of the head and called it hēmikranía. Latin took it as hemicrania, Old French wore it down to migraine, and the h and the c fell out on the way. The clinical term survives beside the popular one: hemicrania continua is still a diagnosis. Patients who say the pain lives behind one eye are repeating the original observation.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Late Latin → Old French → English
- First recorded
- 14th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
craniumcranialhemisphere
In a sentence
A migraine kept her in a dark room for most of Sunday.
He can tell one is coming an hour ahead, from the zigzag of light at the edge of his sight.