Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Nephritis
/nɪˈfraɪtɪs/noun
Inflammation of the kidneys.
The Greek roots
νεφρός
nephrós
kidney
-ῖτις
-îtis
inflammation of
Literally: “kidney inflammation”
The story of the word
The -itis that ends half of clinical medicine was not originally a noun ending at all. It was a feminine adjective agreeing with νόσος, disease, so νεφρῖτις meant 'the kidney disease' with the noun left unsaid. Doctors kept the adjective, dropped the noun, and gave the orphan a life of its own in appendicitis, arthritis and a thousand others.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 16th century
Same family
nephrologynephronarthritisbronchitis
In a sentence
Nephritis after a strep throat is rarer now than it was in her grandmother's day.
The biopsy confirmed nephritis rather than simple dehydration.