Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Mitochondrion
/ˌmaɪtəˈkɑːndriən/noun
The organelle inside a cell that produces most of its chemical energy.
The Greek roots
μίτος
mítos
thread of a warp
χόνδρος
khóndros
grain, granule
Literally: “thread-grain”
The story of the word
Carl Benda coined the word in 1898 for structures he could see but not explain: under his stain they looked like threads in some cells and like scattered grains in others, so he named both shapes at once. Nobody knew they made energy until the 1940s. The same χόνδρος, a grain or lump, gives cartilage its medical prefix in chondrocyte and chondritis.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
Same family
mitosischondrocytechondritis
In a sentence
Muscle cells are crowded with mitochondria because they burn energy so fast.