Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Myopathy
/maɪˈɒpəθi/noun
Any disease in which the muscle fibres themselves are damaged or fail to work.
The Greek roots
μῦς
mŷs
muscle, mouse
πάθος
páthos
suffering, disease
Literally: “muscle suffering”
The story of the word
μῦς does double duty in Greek: it means both mouse and muscle. Someone watching a bicep move under the skin saw a small animal running there, and Latin agreed with musculus, little mouse. Myopathy names the diseases that sit in the muscle itself, as opposed to the neuropathies that break the nerves giving it orders.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
myocardiummyalgiapathologysympathy
In a sentence
Statins cause myopathy in a small fraction of patients, and the muscle aches usually settle once the drug stops.
A biopsy separated the myopathy from a nerve problem.